 |
|
|
|
|
...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
|
... and as we are leaving town, we find out we need to be back in 8 days to take care of family business. We have time enough to do this run, but any leg two is now limited to almost directly straight back. The plan is to do three back to back runs before being in town for a couple of weeks. We did a quick stop at the IA rest area before getting to Forest City to pick up our RV's. As usual it takes about 2-1/2 hours to get to the PU and about an hour to do our inspection. It looked like it could start raining but just a few sprinkles. No issues with ours, but a couple of women had a headlight out on one of their RV's so would likely be spending the night. We stopped in Clear Lake for fuel. BB's unit is a diesel and the fuel nozzle will not fit in the 'no cap' fuel hole so the RV comes with a short plastic pipe ... problem is the fuel doesn't stop when the tank is full if you are using that pipe. (had to get back in the RV from the other side so she wouldn't step in the fuel.) Ate a quick hot dog and were back on the road. Pulled into the motel in Ankeny about 10 minutes after sunset. 20170828 - IA-CA Left out of Ankeny before eight o'clock. No issues with rush hour traffic. 1st stop was a rest area near Adair, IA. Still working on the bridges and roads in Council Bluffs, plenty of roads in Omaha ... 7 lanes wide in places. 2nd stop was a Shell station in Greenwood, NE. Gas was cheaper in Lincoln but I didn't have enough fuel to get that far and the cheap gas was off the Interstate so it was marginally worth it to drive to it. 3rd stop was the Iron Skillet at Petro in York, NE. The layout of the buffet has changed, I think they have a lot fewer choices but still more than I can eat. 4th stop was another rest area, that seems to be our pattern. 5th stop was fuel and food in Ogallal, NE. Fueled at Wal-mart, my pump shut down so I had to wait a while to get a receipt from the cashier after their computers rebutted. Food was next door at Wendy's. I walked up to the door 1st as it didn't look like it was open, by the time we left the place was hoppin' (people are more likely to stop if they know it's open?) Final stop, Sidney, NE Quality Inn. 550 miles today. Looking at our DOT hours we won't have the time to pick up any work on the way home ... in the three years we've been doing this, we've only gotten one truck between the three companies we work for so the chances were slim even if we tried to get work. 20170829 - IA-CA Pulled out of Sidney just as the sun was coming up. 1st stop was the POE (Port of Entry) to get our Wyoming trip permit. 2nd stop was Larami, WY for fuel. Just a little station with no bathroom or convenience store, but gas for $.20 less than across the street and $.40 less than the closest truck stop. 3rd stop is the TA in Rawlin's, WY. This is one of the few TA's that still has a hot food buffet, most only have a soup and salad buffet and some don't have any buffet and others don't even have a Country Pride. 4th stop was in Rock Springs at the Flying J, not much for rest stops out here so this was it. 5th stop just past exit 21 ... it is partway up a long hill and the trucks are jockeying for position so I lost track of BB for a while. Heading down the other side, the phone rings. Lucky I am right near an exit. It is BB, she has broken down. Ahhh and now I notice my fuel level has dropped, and my range is only 50 miles. I drive 55 mph back to where she is parked on the side of the road. Exit 21 is a ranch exit with a culvert for an underpass. The sign says Clearance 13' 2," I double check my paperwork before heading in. The RV had lost power when going up the hill and she was barely able to get to the side of the road before in coasted to a stop. Luckily it was still where there was the entrance ramp so that there was a one lane buffer between us and the traffic. The paved 'shoulder' was only a couple of feet wide at that point so we were mostly in the dirt. BB took care of making all the calls. At one point she was told that it would be tomorrow before they could get us towed off the freeway ... BB told them to keep looking. We sat on the side of the road for six hours. No food, no bathroom ... no WiFi. The highway patrol did stop a couple of times. We asked and he said "if they can't get a tow truck, we will, they don't often say no to us." We are over our 14 hour day and now we don't get paid for the last almost 700 miles on BB's RV but we still have the costs. That is a big downside with this company, we only get paid for miles driven. Break downs are part of the risk we take. If you break down you may already have a $100 flight home from FL and instead you only get paid half the miles, loose the flight and pay $500 to get home from a little town in TN. 6th stop was Flying J in Evanston. I was down under 25 mile range in fuel (that is when it stops showing range) and we needed to eat. Subway was about the only thing open. The Quality Inn was next door. Fuel prices had already started going up. We would try to sleep in. 20170830 - IA-CA Due to the late night last night we did not get going until 10 am. Fuel prices seem to have gone up overnight. This jump seems to be about $.30 per gallon but we have no way of knowing what each station was a few days ago. 1st stop was Lake Point, UT. The last services before we hit the salt flats. Had planned on stopping here for fuel but prices have gone up overnight here too so this is just a bathroom break. Surprising how cool it seems here at 87. The sun and humidity seem to effect how warm it feels more than the temp. See a bus driven by my other company at the exit scale in UT, and again at the truck stop. But I didn't see him quick enough to stop and talk. 2nd stop is West Wendover to eat. Often we stop for a buffet as they give a discount to CDL drivers but we are trying to make over 600 miles today so we are limiting our breaks to 30 minutes and Burger King. A dispatcher calls on the truck I took from FL to CA about a month ago. Once I am moving again I get another call from the same company. Seems I was supposed to have called the company claims department besides the dispatchers when I lost part of the truck. Neither dispatcher followed up and now they are back to looking for answers from me. 3rd stop is in Wells, NV at the Petro. Gas is still $.30 cents difference between the stations that have raised their prices and those that haven't. 4th stop is at a Shell in Battle Mountain, NV. IF I fill here and my fuel range stays the same I will not have to fuel again. 5th stop is in Lovelock, NV for food. Port O Subs. There seems to be as many of them out here as Subways. Good sandwich, fresh bread. Then we hit the backups. The computer wanted to send us way north of Reno and back on some unknown road. Not a good idea with a new RV that is not mine. It may have delayed us 30 minutes to an hour so we get to the motel tonight at 10 instead of 11 pm. Way too late for us old folks. The place is now a Best Western, one of the few motels in town that were under $100 tonight before tax. Sometime earlier today BB found a rental car for half the price we were going to pay so that will off set the mileage she is losing by leaving her RV in WY. Then later the location called and said they don't have a car so no need to get there early ... so I guess we sleep in. Bad news on the mileage. When I filled in Battle Mountain, I should have been able to make it to delivery with 20 miles to spare. By the time I got the the motel I will be 60 miles short of my drop. Major headwinds sure cut into the mileage. So does driving 65 instead of 60 ... so that we could make up for some of the lost time yesterday. 20170831 - IA-CA No reason to get up and rolling this AM, found out last night they may not have a rental car for us until noon. So we get up later and eat at 'Mel's Diner' at the hotel. By the time we paid for breakfast the room cost was $130. 1st stop was a few feet away, fueled at Chevron before heading up the mountain. Put in enough fuel to get to the drop and a couple of gallson (30 miles) to spare. When I fueled again I had 30 miles to spare before 'E.' 2nd stop was just to drop BB. The Hertz we rented from was up a narrow winding road a few miles off the freeway. Not somewhere I would take a 60' bus. Not sure I would take the larger RV's on that road. Just went around the block (because we couldn't find it) and dropped BB off at the curb. Opps ... can't read the highway numbers on the phone, no matter how far I zoom in the numbers stay the same size. Took exit 109 instead of 106. No big issue, they run parallel. 3rd stop was $20 final fuel that the shipper pays for. 4th stop was a mile away, the wash at the side of a Ford building. Because we got going late due to the car, the wash guy was gone to lunch ... and when we get to delivery they are gone to lunch. So one delay caused a couple of more delays. 5th stop was the drop. Even with the delay it only took about 45 minutes. 6th stop ... In-and-Out burger and shake. Double Double for each of us. 7th stop was Donners Pass rest area. Pretty gruesome story behind that pioneer family. 8th stop was on the side of the exit ramp. BB had made a motel reservation for one room, the confirmation came back for two rooms. Not a big deal, just another 15 minute delay. 9th stop was Taco Bell in Winnemucca, a few blocks from our ... 10th stop, our motel. The sky is smokey, but we haven't seen flames in the daylight. Did see a helicopter with a water bucket. With the trip going as it has, we did not call any of the three companies looking for work. Just a straight drive home. 20170901 - IA-CA Short day today. At breakfast we are realizing we could have stayed in Reno last night for less money, less hours and still made it home Sunday night. This motel includes breakfast at the Model T, an in house restaurant. Two eggs, 4 pieces of bacon, juice and toast. 1st stop is Battle Mountain where the Shell has gas the same price as a couple of days ago. 2nd stop is West Wendover, no buffet this trip just a quick Arbys to eat on the go. Everywhere we go we see firefights, the air is thick with smoke since California. When we enter UT we can't see the hills across the salt flats. Might have been a good picture off the salt water with the mountains in the background but I was driving. 3rd stop is a rest area at Echo, UT. Not much for restrooms, not much for parking. 4th stop is a Shell in Rock Springs. Cruel's. Gas is still $.30 cheaper than other places in town. With this car I gained mileage range. I started with 3 miles to spare and got here with 60+ to spare. At one point I was up to 47 mpg going 75, but when I drive 80 it drops a little. 5th stop is our Quality Inn in Rock Springs. We have stayed here before. A little later we go to the Village Inn. We had planned on going to the Golden Correl buffet but neither of us was up for a buffet. Work pulled all the work off the board so nothing to look at until Tuesday. 20170902 - IA-CA A little chilly at sunup this AM, we had to walk outside to get to the breakfast building. 1st stop was the rest area just past Sinclear, WY, home of Sincear Oil. 2nd stop was the TA at Burns, WY just past the POE scale. Burger King was our noon fast food. 3rd stop was the Flying J at Big Springs, NE. Fuel Islands were all full so I moved down to the RV pumps which were empty. A couple of other cars followed me. Fuel was $.20 cheaper here than anywhere else today. 4th stop was a rest area in Cozad. 5th stop was the Petro in York, but they didn't have any pizza's on the shelf and didn't offer to make any ... so we went to the drive thru at Arbys. As we were leaving we saw one 'our' buses being towed ... coulda/shoulda called dispatch and asked if there was a driver in need of a ride. That was the third bus we saw today, the other two were being driven. Per yesterdays email we should have met six of them today. 6th and final stop was the Quality Inn in Omaha. We had planned on stopping an hour earlier in Lincoln but the motels were all over $100. When we got to our motel there was a 'Sold Out' sign on the counter ... they had sold out about an hour after we made our reservations this afternoon. Big collage football game in Lincoln today. 20170903 - IA-CA Getting closer to home ... 1st stop is just across the border in Council Bluffs. The BP has the cheapest fuel between here and home and we won't make it without some more fuel. 2nd stop is in Cambridge, IA just north of Des Moines. It is Labor Day weekend so they have coffee and snacks, and donations are accepted. 3rd stop is that Other Place in Clear Lake. The parking lot is packed but we still get seated right away, and the food is good. 4th stop we pick up our car. 5th stop is home for a night or two ... or three. The RV company emptied the board with the loads on it so we can't do the math to line up our next one until the put them back on. We weren't expecting this. |
