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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2 - New RV's 20180912 - IA to CA Last night after the office closed they put out a bunch more RV's so now there are RV's going to West Sacramento again. No little Travato's like BB likes to drive but both small and big ones. We at 8 am and keep calling until we get through. We aren't the 1st ones but we do get our run. The board went from 90 overnight down to 40 before they added more back to the board. So still lots of choices. After a day filled by seeing the dentist, Mom, the barber and a few other things we finally pull out of our house about 5 pm. Neither of us are hungry but we stop in Albert Lea at McD's before stopping for the night in Clear Lake at the Best Western. The Best Western was cheaper than our Choice hotels tonight so we got a little closer to Forest City. 20180913 - IA to CA We need to attend a safety meeting twice a year to receive our bonus pay based on miles driven. If we hadn't stayed in town for this meeting we could have been back on the road Sunday. No motel breakfast this AM, they will feed us twice at the meeting. We get to Forest City before 8 am. Sign in starts at 8, breakfast at 8:30. Sometimes it's been various types of egg bake but today it is biscuits and sausage gravy. Plus bakery items and fruit. The day starts with a presentation on exercise, followed by one on diabetes ... almost everything on both the breakfast and lunch menu went against everything we heard during those two presentations. :) After that we headed outside to the 'drunk / distracted driving course.' The local police were there with a golf cart and testing anyone who wanted. People weren't drunk, but the police had a pair of goggles that altered what you could see ... Then there was the dunk tank, followed by a short update meeting before eating lunch. Didn't see any of the people we had met other years at these meetings. Talked a little to some new ones. I talked to the guy from corp, trying to find out where other loads were that didn't show up on the board like the buses not showing up on the board. Not sure if he didn't understand or he was just avoiding answering but I never did get an answer. We finally got to the lot by 2 pm and out of the lot by 3 pm. Had to wait to get our paperwork and had to do our pre-trips where we sat. 100+ at the meeting and maybe a third of them were trying to head out when we were. Not a good start. There is cable that is supposed to stop the 'hood' from falling too far down ... it wasn't attached. Then once I got going down the road a floor panel between the seats blew off exposing the engine inside the RV and pushing all the hot air from the engine into the RV. Further down the road the cruise stopped working for a while ... Our first stop was at the Pilot in Clear Lake for fuel. $2.69 ... 90 miles down the road we saw it for $2.59 ... and I put in almost 60 gallons. From there we made it all the way to our motel in West Des Moines. This may be a duplicate of last trip. Tonight was spent in the Sleep Inn. We had talked of just going to McD's after our two big meals today but I looked online and saw a place that had a chicken salad sandwich ... Turns out that was the lunch menu and I got a steak sandwich instead. And it was a steak on bread, not something I usually order. And BB got a Salmon BLT. This was at the Fire Creek. Good food but more that we needed for more than we needed to spend. With tomorrow being Friday we need to make calls to the drop, for permits and about getting a bus heading back east. 20180914 - IA to CA Lots of food for breakfast, eggs, sausage, potatoes, hash, biscuits and gravy. Didn't need that much, buffet for lunch. Nothing new in the last couple of weeks between Des Moines and Omaha. Now we know our exit is no longer '2' but '50.' Haven't looked up yet why that change was made. When we pull out of the Pilot in Council Bluffs after fueling, a warning light, wrench, comes on. It's yellow so I keep driving hoping it will go off. It doesn't, and once we clear Omaha I pull off at a rest area and call dispatch, the 800 # and local dealers. The help line is pretty helpless in knowing what they are supposed to do. I need to get more info from dispatch before I call them back. After talking to three different people in dispatch, the manger said to run with it but the light needs to be cleared before delivery. This was 45 minutes I wasn't planning on. Noon is the Iron Skillet in York. Not a whole lot of choices I liked by way more food than I needed. In trying to save my hours, we took another half hour off duty break in Cozad. This time I was calling people. Tried to finally call a possible place to host my website but he doesn't work Friday afternoons. Call for my next run, he is gone next week, called the person who is taking over for him ... guess they aren't answering their phone until next week. And I called the drop, they don't ask any questions, just remind me of their hours. 2nd fuel of the day, Ogallala at Walmart. It's hard to get in and out of sometimes but it is cheap. Another RV driver pulled in behind us, he's also going to West Sacramento but he flies home and won't deliver until late in the day as he has an evening flight. Fuel pumps cut us off at $100, we didn't restart them. Another hour and we are Sidney. We splurged this trip and stayed at the Comfort Inn instead of the Quality Inn. Closest food is the IHOP at Loves but we walked to the better of the two Mexican places. 20180915 - IA to CA Breakfast yesterday was a long time ago ... (I don't remember) When we are doing our morning RV check I notice someone in a car close by sitting up, taking off their shades, look around and then pull out. That nights rest didn't cost him much ... where'd he stay? The Comfort Inn ... just not inside the Comfort Inn. The Port Of Entry is open in Cheyenne again. No line. We know the routine. All they need is our over width permit and our plate number. Yes, we need an over width permit because of the awning. Once the RV is sold, it becomes a non-commercial vehicle and a permit is not needed. Stopped in Laramie at the new Loves for Fuel. It wasn't open two-three weeks ago when we came through. The Country Pride / TA in Rawlins is food for today. This locations has hot food plus the soup and salad bar. Plenty to eat. One of the soups was 'Chicken White Chili.' I tried it, no beans, just a little chicken in potato soup ... and chili powder. My lips still were sore hours later. Saw our first wildlife today other than birds. A few deer, that's what they call them out here, they are not white-tail. The ones prior to today have all been roadkill. Last stop today was at Cruel Jack's. Usually we get some fuel here but neither of us needed any this time. So just a break, this one we turned into a half hour for DOT reasons. Good A&W on a hot day. When we pulled out of Rock Springs I could see clouds in the west ... but then I realized they looked like the clouds from the Allen King plant. A ways down the road and we couldn't see the other side of the valley in places. Plan had been to make it past Salt Lake today but the winds had been just less than what would shut us down. The next two hours would be more of the same at the end of a lot day. The fact the motel here was $50 less than past Salt Lake also played into our staying. After fueling, gas was $.20 a gallon less here than SLC, we checked into the Quality Inn next door. I asked when we checked in if they would take off the safe charge. I couldn't see what the person did, but then they gave me a receipt just showing the total. I left it at that. Then we walked back to the Flying J and Subway. The bar we ate at last time (during the football game) was too loud and the steakhouse was to pricey. The whole outdoors smells like a bon fire. 20180916 - IA to CA We were up before breakfast was supposed to be served ... now I remember yesterday. At the Comfort Inn in Sidney we were down a half hour before breakfast was supposed to start. Us and a whole bunch of other people. Taking what ever food was set out. I was OK, we were going to have a buffet at noon so yogurt was enough. Then they put out omelettes with cheese and other stuff in them ... Back to this morning at the Quality Inn. All the food is out and we look like the first ones down, everything is still clean. Just eggs, biscuits and gravy. When the help asked how the food was, I asked if the gravy was supposed to be boiling ;0 ... no, they had not taken off the safe charge last night and he couldn't figure out how to get it off today. So twice in a row we've paid for the safe here. It's only $1.50 ... plus tax ... times about 200 motels a year. It adds up. Sun is not up yet this am, no sure it was even first light. But by the time we got a few miles down the road I could see the white lines beyond my headlights. And I could see a couple of clouds in the sky. The smoke had cleared overnight. Did not see the sun until we were all the way down the 'hills' and near Salt Lake. Too close to the base of the hills. "201 closed ahead" That is our short cut going through Salt Lake City. There were no signs before we got on 201, only after. Not know the roads, I took one that pointed to the airport to get back on to I-80. I see there was one that would have been shorter but I was afraid of getting one that was longer ... much longer. And it might have been good that we didn't try to get this far last night. Not sure when the fire had been but just before the Flying J there had been a recent fire including in the median. No fire trucks but posts were still smoking as were a lot of the railroad ties. Not sure if that is why a train was sitting where it was, but very likely not a good idea to take a train load worth millions down a smoking track. Stopped at the Flying J in Tooele for fuel. Not sure what caused it all but neither of my credit cards would work. I may have swiped the card the same time as BB, that will do it. And I did mis-type my zip code, but it usually gives me a second chance ... and the other card said it was 'an unusual purchase.' Did get fuel, it just took a little longer. From here I MAY get to delivery. If I waited until Wendover and filled I would be leaving gallons ... I don't know if there was an event or just a bunch of like minded people but at the westbound rest area in the salt flats there were cars out on the flats and dozens and dozens of people out walking on the flats. Usually there are only a couple of people and no cars. Next stop was the truckers lounge in Wendover. I think it is owned by the casino's, but it has a very large truck lot, rest rooms and showers. Works for us. Today we took a half hour DOT time here. Elko, no buffet today. We ate at Burger King. If you look close at their screen showing the orders it also shows the time. I finally had to ask "What's going on, my order has been on the screen for over 10 minutes and you are serving the drive thru in under three minutes." At that point they offered me my money back (there was a line.) I said no, but I did finally get my food about a minute after that. Next stop was Winnemucca. BB needs fuel, I don't ... yet. I have gone from being short 10 miles to over 10 miles but I'm not sure I want to run the tank down to one gallon. Mileage hasn't changed much, just under 8 mpg. It'll make it a long day, but we've mostly decided to go to Verdi tonight. That will be 600+ instead of our usual 500 daily miles. That will get us past Reno and any rush our traffic, and into our usual motel. We do stop after two hours and eat at Denny's in the Flying J. Maybe would should have picked another fast food. Food was fine but it took an hour. We can usually get in and out of fast food in a half hour and this is getting to be a long day. ... and maybe we wouldn't have had the sun in our eyes if we'd have been that little bit earlier. And we could have eaten the lobster buffet ... Best Western in Verdi. Tomorrow I will have to call Ford again and try to get someone who knows how to handle the RV issues. Most likely I will be dropping it at a dealer, but I want to get it as close to delivery as I can so I get paid for as many miles as I can. This would not have been a money making trip if I had had to leave my in Omaha. The other down side is, now I won't get paid until someone else delivers this RV. Usually we get paid within 2-24 hours of delivery. ... my cell phone has been giving me issues. Now it has lost a bunch of my contact info. Recent calls are still there but the contact info is gone, just the lists the number now. Also older contacts. Yet it is saving email address and birthdays ... instead of phone numbers. ??? Long day. Drop somewhere tomorrow and then see if I can get a bus from the person filling in for the usual dispatcher. Should be an interesting day.. 20180917 - IA to CA Wow! Blinding ... I walk out of the bathroom at the hotel and BB has opened the shades and the sun is just at ground level. As usual, our breakfast is at Mels. Some of the staff is same as before (we are getting to know the staff at some of these places) When I filled last, my fuel range was a few miles short of my drop, by this AM it is about 10 miles past my drop. Not enough on a 80 gallon tank on something I have never driven before. Just before my range gets down to 50 miles I pull off for fuel in Emigrant Gap at a Shell and put in 5 gallons. Another hour down the road and we are in Roseville ... CA. We stop at a shopping mall about a mile from where the RV repair shop is and start making calls. I was on the phone for over an hour before I got the OK to deliver as is. The good news about being able to deliver is I will get paid today. If it goes to a shop and I leave it there, I wouldn't get paid until the RV is delivered to the final customer. We fuel in West Sacramento at the Chevron and are next in line at the drop. We have to park on the street, but the check-in man gives us a wave as soon as he sees us so he knows we are here. Today they check us in right on the street. We walk inside to wait while they check us over. Once all the paperwork is signed BB calls for a ride to the rental car place. They pick us up in about a half hour. Once we have our car we go back to almost the drop to 'our' In-n-Out' burger place for lunch. Once we are done eating we head down to Livermore to wait until 5 pm for a bus. We do our usual walk around the outlet center then sit and wait for time to pass. I talked to the normal dispatcher on Friday, he gave me the name and number of the person doing his job this week while he is on vacation. I had called her then and left a message. I had also called a few times today and left another message. After 5 pm I leave another message. At this point we start driving by the building and we can see her car but she still doesn't answer the phone or call back. Finally about 6:30 I decide to see if the security guard will let us in, he does. So we go and talk to her. I am 'not on the list.' I don't ask her who's list or anymore questions. From the unanswered phone to our conversation I realize there will be no work this time. It shouldn't have been, but it was kind of a surprise we hadn't prepared for. No backup plan. BB quickly finds a cheap car for $50 a day and a motel for the night. We get up north of Sacramento before 9 pm. BB had eaten at McD's while we were waiting for the bus, I was still not hungry then but knew I needed to eat something tonight. I go through the Arbey's in the parking lot of the Comfort Inn. Comfort Inn is where we stay. Huge place, lots of parking. This will work for RV's if we ever need to ... like in the winter if we want to get over Donners Pass before it closes. 20180918 - IA to CA We are both up early but no need to, we can't pick up our car before 8 am. Breakfast had bacon ... plus the other usual stuff. Oh, this room was to be over a $100 again last night but we used points because it was only 8,000. Usually the only room you can get for 8,000 points is at a Rodeway or EconoLodge (the bottom of the chain) No work last night so I call my company in MN about 9:30 midwest time. Yes, they have a truck in Billings going to KS. But they want to check things out. But before they call back, I start to remember who the customer might be and realize it is likely a cab-over ... rough ride. They call the customer and it is a cabover so that is a no go. They also have one in Chicago going to Duluth ... BB calls before we go to pickup our rental. No they do not have a car and likely will not have one tomorrow ... we needed to make this backup plan a few days ago. So ... we will have to go to the airport and pay twice as much. The profit on this trip is going down fast. Before we leave I get a call back for where I plan on hosting my website. That call took quite a while. He seemed to find it hard to believe that I didn't want the best, flashiest website out there ... no, it's my personal site, and others can look at if they want to. I don't care if they can't view it on their phone and it doesn't look pretty. (and is compiled from software from a company that went out of business 15 years ago) And before I am off the phone with him and truck shows up on our board going from West Sacramento to Buffalo, NY. I call dispatch but they can't give me all the info I want so I pass. But as we head down the road I start remembering that dispatch will give me the phone number for this customer and I can call them myself. So we stop at a mall area and I call back to dispatch. By now someone else has it on hold for 20 minutes so we wait. I call them back, the other driver did not take it. Then I call the customer and find out it is a 'day cab.' They can be a very rough ride and not likely to have enough room for all our luggage. So I pass on this one also. By this time I have spent a good 1-2 hours on the phone and we still haven't picked up our 2nd rental car. Because BB has 'status' with Hertz, we don't have to wait at the counter, we can walk right to the 'Presidents row' and pick any car we want. But they are all big cars with poor mileage. So we talk to someone and they show us a smaller car, but it doesn't have cruise. Finally the person helping us mentions a Toyota, it was in the row for those who hadn't made it to President status. We take it. Then BB calls to see if we can drop the first car at the airport instead of back in West Sacramento. We can, so we drop it and walk across the lot to where our Hertz is parked. We end up back at the Arbey's next to last nights Comfort Inn. Two gyros, but another 10 plus minute wait for our food as others behind us were getting their food ... just not our week I guess. As we came into NV the truck inspection place was open. It is rarely open and if it is open there are 2-3 cops there. Today there were about 20 cops checking trucks ... luckily I was in a car. Next stop is at the same Flying J in Fernly to use the restroom. Then we eat at a Mexican place in Elko before heading to our motel. The post office in Elko does not have a street drop so we had to go inside to drop our mail ... and six o'clock at night. The building is not locked. Comfort Inn. About $10 more than the Quality Inn, but they sold out a few hours ago before we made reservations. We could have made it another hour and a half to Wendover but decided to get off the road earlier than last night. Next week I will be driving buses back from Crookston, take an off day on Saturday and then leave out on Sunday if there is work. Not likely to be anything to CA, it seems to go in batches and this run looks like its over. This trip we made about 1/3 of what we did last trip. Still OK, but at this rate we need to work more days. 20180919 - IA to CA Mostly an uneventful day. Plenty of breakfast before we left. We had to wait until they were setup before going down. The alarm had been set for 5:30 but we were both up by 4:30. I'm working on getting a new host for my website but couldn't find all the info, but they finally got things figured out. But we were still out of the motel by 7 am. Not much exciting on the road today across NV and later WY. Most exciting thing was watching the mileage go up a tenth of a mile at a time. 1st stop was the rest area on the salt flats in UT. 2nd stop was a Flying J IN Salt Lake. We wanted to look at it first with a car before trying to get in with RV's. We won't try to get in. The lot seems big enough but the location is just off I-80, I-15 and UT-201. Very congested. We put in $10 of gas while we were there. We stopped at the best place to eat in Evanston. Judy' Diner. I've eaten there once before as it is right across from the Motel 6. We ended up waiting quite a while for our food before the waitress came over and said that we had ordered the same thing as the next customer and she only turned in the one order. So ours was late ... and free. BB had a chicken sandwich and I had a philly. We were still in and out in about an hour which is pretty normal. Next stop was at a rest area east of Rock Springs. Outhouses that were days past needing to be pumped. The building was locked. It did rain twice between Rock Springs and Laramie. The first time we were able to see both drops before they dried. The second time it was more drops than we wanted to count, but we could have counted them. Very dry. Saw one roll over on right on the freeway. Car was just getting ready to be flipped. Plan was to eat at the Iron Skillet and fuel after we checked into the motel. But the motel was five miles past the food so we found other food. Quality Inn, once we got here we realized we have been here before. We asked what was within walking distance and they said Applebee's. Once we started walking we saw there were at least a dozen places within walking distance. We ended up at Perkins,' we were seated right away, our order taken right away and then we waited. BB finally asked when our order would be out, the person said they would check, but went back to clearing tables and never did get back to us. I had taken a picture of the outside when we walked in so I knew what time we had gotten there. We both agreed if we didn't have our found by an hour we were going to walk. Two minutes before we were going to walk we got our food. It was good and it was hot. They had offered us free salad's while we waited and later, offered us free pie. We did not want the salads but "I" did take them up on two pieces of pie. ;) BB had fish and I had a half a french dip and soup. Pretty basic stuff. As we waited to pay, the person who was seated ahead of us was waiting to pay. He had also waited an hour ... with a <> 4 year old. We had to walk back in the dark. 20180920 - IA to CA Awoke from my dream just after the third trailer in a set of triples came to a stop after crossing the oncoming traffic. I was in a car next to it when it happened (in my dream) Usual breakfast, got going early. Lots of fog this morning. I thought it would be too dry for fog. First stop is just an hour down the road at the Pilot in Cheyenne. This is the cheapest fuel before Ogallala and we don't have enough gas to make it there. Plan was to put in a couple of gallons to get us there, but I started the pump and looked at my emails ... and the tank was full. That cost us all of about $.75, by filling here instead of Ogallala. Next stop was Ogallala, GasBuddy said the cheap fuel was at Wal-Mart but by the time we got there it was cheaper at the TA. The has switched gas from Tesoro to Sinclear since the last time we stopped here. Pump stopped at $9.98, the amount I had planned on putting in in Cheyenne. Lexington for lunch. We decide to get 'fast food' another try. Arbey's ... this time the order took 3+ minutes. Kearney is our next stop at the rest area. In and out. Council Bluffs at the Pilot is our fuel stop, this time I do want to fill it. Gas does not get any cheaper from here home. Somewhere between Council Bluffs and Des Moines my country music station comes in. And a notice of severe weather. Where we are is clear skies but a look at the radar shows storms all the way in to MN. We stop at Wendy's for our to-go food. In and gone in about five minutes. A few minutes later we are at our Sleep Inn in Ankeny. Not the cheapest but we have gotten spoiled. We haven't stayed at a Super 8 or Days Inn for a long time. It was almost a 12 hour day today with no long breaks. But by pushing it, we should get the car back a day sooner and save almost $100. The work board is back up over 60, it hasn't gotten down to -0- yet. Not sure what it will be like next Friday when we are looking for work. Tomorrow we need to pickup our car and get the rental back to MSP. We have a couple of hours to spare so we are not real tight on time. Then I need to get my blood tested. And I'll call and see if I am needed to go to Crookston over the weekend. If not, I will likely head out to Mom's. Nothing major on the highway today, which is a good thing. Watched oncoming traffic for any transporters. Saw a few, but no buses today. 20180921 - IA to CA At the last minute we decided to set the alarm an hour earlier. Good thing we did. We dropped the car less than 15 minutes before our cut off time. Basic Choice breakfast before leaving the hotel. Stopped to top off the fuel tank in Clear Lake at the Flying J, this is the cheapest fuel we were going to find. Stopped at the lot in Forest City to pickup our car and move all of our luggage from one car to the other. Lots of water, rivers are over their banks, the city baseball fields are under water. Also lots more RV's in the lot than are showing on the board, maybe another 50 or so that aren't showing. While BB was returning the car I stopped at Fort Snelling and was taking more pictures. Sometime later that afternoon I realized that all the pictures I took today I already had. I was looking at an old list. We stopped at a Leon Chin's before heading home. Working local Saturday and hopefully most of the next week before we leave town again a week from Sunday.  |