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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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2 RV's to Mocksville, NC ... spending the night at Walcott IA No alarm. Breakfast is leftovers from last night. Shortly after 7 AM I realize I have forgotten to call to get my Monday truck. Opps and forgotten seem to be getting to be common topics. :( I call and get the truck, it turns out the PPL as the description is short for the company name of who we are moving it for. We are moving it for another driveaway company. So extra paperwork. By calling early I am able to print out copies at home. The last trip I didn't have my phone with so I was using the camera and the clock on the old phone. Last night I spent way too much time trying to get the software to work to get those photo's off that phone. This AM I just started emailing them to myself. Once I was done, I went to put the old phone back in the case in my bag. NOOOOOooo. Not again. We FORGOT. Somewhere I left the case the phone had been in. Not sure if I left it in the truck or in the rental car. I had to take it out of the larger travel bag because it wouldn't fit in the side compartment when in the bag. I don't remember taking it out of the truck, but the truck is bright orange and the case, a clip board that is thick enough to put stuff inside, is black. Pretty hard to miss. But the inside of the car was black. Black on black. I have called where I dropped the truck, had to leave a message and no reply. And I have filed a lost report with the rental car company. The up side is that the value of the lost is about $25. $10 deposit on each of the two missing I-Pass.' We canceled them online and ordered one new one. The I-Pass web page asks a lot of questions to get you the 'right' IPass. But we run anything and everything on any IPass and always get billed the correct amount. So we shouldn't really need two IPasses each. At one point I had three and BB had two. Now we will only have three. One for rental cars and the other two for trucks. A little frustration to start out the day. We double check to make sure we haven't forgotten anything this AM. So far we don't see to have. 1st stop is the rest area near Owattona. 2nd stop is for fuel and food at Northwood. BP and BK. I use up the last of the BP gift cards at the pump. BB orders us each a Whopper Jr. 3rd stop is at the lot in Forest City. Busy again today. I talk to a couple of drivers, one is heading to Myrtle Beach and the other to TX. The TX driver just came from Mocksville, where we will be dropping on Monday. He said it was one of the quickest drops he has had, and that was before I said we were going there. From there he headed to AR with a pickup. So he got one of the ones we would have taken. And he lives in KSC so he would have taken my trip if he hadn't already taken the AR run. Talked to the manager when we got our paperwork. I mentioned that this will make our third trip with him this month. Our record. He askes if we can do six more. Just Wednesday the shipper had added 50 more in one day to the backlog. That is normally what happens a the end of the quarter. This is week two of the new quarter. And there is a new model coming out and lots of dealers take two just to start. Those are not on the lot yet. It takes us our usual hour to do our inspection. We each have enough fuel to get to Floyd were I will get a discount of fuel. ... but gas is cheaper in Clear Lake so BB stops there. 4th stop, Loves in Floyd. I get a discount, but because I am driving a small unit I need to fuel at the auto pumps. So I have to go inside and get the pump turned on. They know how to do that. But after I fuel, the mangers are at the register because the cashiers didn't know how to ring me up. By the time I pull away from the pump, BB is getting there. 5th stop is the Casey's in Center Point for a restroom break. While there we make our reservation at Walcott. We have daylight and hours but we don't need to push it to make delivery Monday AM. 6th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Walcott. We order online and walk next door to Grandma's Kitchen for food. I save enough of mine for breakfast. NO breakfast at this location. BB had grabbed a couple of breakfast bars from home before we left today. Last trip we walked to Pilot for shelf food in the AM. Not too much new most of this trip. We will take the same route as two weeks ago except for the last 100 miles. Load board US - 439 IA - 201 MN - 7 WI - 12 There is a pickup heading up to Milwaukee out of NC that would work with our run, but BB doesn't want to drive through Chicago. Right through. All the 'good runs' out of WI are gone today. None of them were moving and they all disappeared at one time. My guess is the customer said they would find someone else. My local company says they will have about 50 buses before the end of the month. Since Covid I have not been moving any. The trips are all too long for BB to follow and I am not riding in a shuttle for five hours to do local work. I emailed and said when I can work. My 2nd truck is 25 miles from our drop and then another 12 miles to drop the rental car in town before we leave. If things go well we could be delivering the 2nd truck by noon on Tuesday. From there it is about three hours up to Chicago to a truck that is still there tonight. IF that truck is still there, we could pick it up yet Tuesday and it goes back home. Less than 500 miles and we would go right past our house, again. That would be Wednesday. Only downside is our van would still be in IA. 210313 IA-NC 2 RV's to Mocksville, NC ... spending the night at Jeffersonville OH Breakfast was leftovers from Grandma's Kitchen. I walk the stairs, BB takes the elevator. This time she shares it with another driveaway driver. He is taking a stack of trucks to MI, and then the rest to Canada. As we are inspecting he comes over and starts talking again. Mostly asking how much stuff is paying now. He's looking at slowing down his pace. We pull out at 7:30. 1st stop is 15 miles down the road for fuel. Diesel is cheaper at Loves so that is where I fuel. Gas is cheaper at Flying J across the street, so that is where BB fuels. I'm getting to know the routine of how the cashier needs to enter my fuel card. Once I am done, I go across the street to where BB is. Someone is looking in the back windows of her RV, but she is now where to be seen. So I park and walk over to a driveaway driver that is also fueling. He is heading to La Grand OR. :) I have family there. That means he is heading right into the storm that will be in CO and WY. He knows, he hopes to get to Sidney and then shut down until it blows over. Sounds like he is making pretty good money. Better than us, but it wouldn't be better for us because of how many miles before we would pick up. Later I found out that he had come over and talked to BB while she was fueling. Because he was talking to her, she forgot to get a receipt from the pump and had to go in. So two drivers today started talking to BB before I saw them. 2nd stop is Congerville at a rest area. 3rd stop is Crawfordsville at the Pilot for food ... and fuel. BB had planned on fueling but I had not. I had parked and re-done my math and saw that I now only had a range of 15 miles to spare. As I sat there with the engine running it dropped so I wouldn't make it. So when BB was done fueling I fueled at the same pump. There was only one other diesel pump and someone was sitting in that spot waiting for others to shop in the store. They finally emptied the spot about the time I was done fueling. They never did fuel while we were there. Food was Subway, we ate outside. 4th stop was Knightstown at the Loves for fuel. I had put in too much fuel to get here. I had more range when I got here than when I was at Crawfordsville. 5th and final stop was the Quality Inn in Jeffersonville. When we checked in, the person at the desk said we could not park in the parking spots blocking the windows. The cops would have us towed ??? We moved. Then we walked across the street to Wendy's. I ordered chili and a potato and BB had a salad. Load board US - 427 IA - 201 MN - 6 WI - 10 Shorter day tomorrow. March madness / basket ball is going on in Indy so cars are $$$ but we did find one in the burb's that was cheaper. So we have a car to home, just in case. But not sure if we will change and move something else before getting home. 210314 IA-NC 2 RV's to Mocksville, NC ... spending the night at Winston-Salem NC Breakfast was limited. Small biscuits and sausage, no egg or cheese. Two yogurts and bad juice. I've had 'issues' with my RV that it doesn't want to move when I put it in gear. Yesterday I had to put it to the floor to get it to move. Today when I get in at the motel and put it in gear, it didn't want to move. So I put it to the floor ... Opps, wrong gear. Luckily this time it did not move. At the corner where we got off the highway is a huge outlet mall. Last week it was a Tanger Mall. Today there is a bag over the sign saying 'Destination Mall.' Seems to be still mostly full. It is laid out differently but it looks larger than the new one in MN. 1st stop is the Pilot in Bidwell. I was going to put in six gallons of fuel which would/should get me to my drop on fumes. BB didn't think that was enough so ... six ... I should not run the RV less than 30-40 miles range, divided by six, I put in 12 gallons. West Virginia 2nd stop is the rest area, oasis in Beckley. BB gets the last piece of supreme pizza. I had ziti again. Today it is a little colder when we sit at their tables outside. As soon as BB is done eating, she heads back to the RV. Sometime this afternoon I realize my error of the fuel. I was going to put in six gallons. I was getting 16 miles per gallon. I should have only put in two more gallons to have fuel to spare. I added six gallons. Virginia 3rd stop is at the Loves in Lambsburg. BB added more fuel. I now have an excess range of 100 miles instead of 30-40. North Carolina We see a dozen plus emergency vehicles in the oncoming traffic. All parked, but no accident that we can see. My guess is that the car or truck had gone off the road before the guard rail started and was somewhere at the bottom of the hill out of our sight. As we get to our motel, there are firetrucks. But they are in front of the motel next to ours, not at our hotel. 4th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Winston-Salem. Food is from next door at the Outback Steakhouse. BB gets chicken. I get two soups. Tomorrow. Use one RV to pick up the rental car and then drop the 1st RV. Then retrace our trip and pick up and drop the 2nd RV. Then 25 miles to pick up the next truck. From there we drop the rental car and hopefully get half way to Indy. 210315 NC-IN 2 RV's to Mocksville, NC (delivered) 1 Semi tractor to Indianapolis IN ... spending the night at Cross Lanes WV Last night BB had listened to the doors to try figure out where the crying was coming from. It was through the 'adjacent' door into the next room. We didn't think much more about it until we went to bed. All quiet in the room and we could hear the child crying/screaming. That was about 9 PM. That went on until 'Dad' came back and then we could hear a male voice. Up to that point we didn't hear anyone put the child. I seemed to drift in and out, with a pillow over my head to deaden the sound. BB had a clock on her side of the bed and had looked at it at 1 AM and 3 AM when they were screaming / yelling. Alarm went off at 6 AM, by then it was all quiet. Breakfast for me was two yogurts. Apple juice was water, OJ was bad enough that I dumped it. When I checked out, I commented to the desk clerk about last night even though they didn't ask how my stay was. 1) We didn't complain because that never ends well for the child. And we didn't want to move in the middle of the night. 2) We were on one side of the screaming. The office was on the other, why did they not hear it and do something about it? 3) We had gotten put in the only handicap room they have. No one is supposed to be put in that room unless they need the roll in shower. 1st stop is the rental car place. Google puts it in what is now a medical building. We ask someone in the lot where Avis was ... 'Well this used to be Sears ...' So Avis was likely here at one time. It is now on the other side of the mall. Huge mall. It still has three anchor's and two vacant area's where the 4th and 5th anchor's used to be. I had driving BB there, she picks up the car and follows me to our next stop, 20 miles down the road. 2nd stop, the TA in Mocksville where we stash my RV for now. 3rd stop is back at the motel to pick up BB's RV. 4th stop is back at the TA in Mocksville where we both fuel. We also unload all of our stuff into the rental car. 5th stop is the drop in Mocksville. I go in and let them know we are here and then go out and wait for the to come and inspect. I had hoped they would do mine first, I was first in line and then I could log off duty earlier. But they did BB's first, then mine. Not a big deal as they had both units inspected in 15 minutes. No issues with either. Then we walked the mile back to our rental car parked at the TA. We had talked about bringing one down first, getting that one inspected and then bringing the other one down. Or shuttle both down before letting them know we were there. It sounded like a good day for a walk, before we started walking. 6th stop was back at the TA to pick up our rental car. BB wanted Chic-fil-A but that exit was closed. So we took a '20 mile detour' to get to the place. Only to find that this location has two drive thru lanes and both were wrapped around the building. After all that driving we headed down the street. Next food was saw was a Cook Out. We stopped there. 7th stop is Statesville for food and to pick up my next truck. BB ordered a chicken sandwich and a malt. So I ordered a burger ... and a malt. The burger was one of the best I have had there. The malt might have been good too ... but I didn't have time to eat it before I got to the truck so most of it got dumped. The pickup location was easy to find. But amongst a bunch of very run down buildings which don't seem to be being used. I found the portable office and showed them my paperwork. They made copies and said to wait outside the gate, they would bring the truck out. While we waited, we watched a guy hook up his tow car to another semi tractor. It looked like he was using a chain and tie straps to secure his tow car. I tried to get a picture but it didn't turn out well. I really didn't know what to expect. Turns out the extra paperwork I received was for the delivery to fill out. And I got a NEW semi tractor to drive. I waited about a half hour for them to bring out the truck and then it took about 15 minutes to inspect. Paperwork said there was three inches of fuel in the tanks. That is not much in a 150 gallon tank. I asked BB to follow me to the closest truck stop. It was less than 10 miles away. 8th stop was the Loves in Statesville. I put in 35 gallons to get it off of flat E. Somewhere after I fueled I realized I couldn't see any mud flaps. That is a huge no-no. So when I stopped to pick up BB at the rental car place I got out and looked. They were there, I just couldn't see them from the cab. We ended up having to bring the rental car back to where we picked it up. Rental cars in NC are really tight right now. So I am putting an extra 40 miles on the truck and most of an hour of time because we couldn't drop it near my pick up location. So now we are back tracking to Indy. All the same roads. VIRGINIA 9th stop is for more fuel. I put in another 35 gallons. That may get me to my drop, if I get 10 miles per gallon. it started out at 4.4 mpg. BB goes in to use the rest room while I fuel. I am done fueling and moving my truck ahead when she comes back. She walks past me twice and then throws her hands in the air when she doesn't see me. I finally had to blow the truck horn at her to get her attention :) She was right in front of me. Plan was to stop at the rest area in VA. Two miles past it I realized I missed it when I saw the one in the on coming lanes. We both missed it, and all the signs before it. WEST VIRGINIA So we stop at the first oasis in WV. 10th stop is Camp Creek. From there I call the drop. He want's it delivered somewhere else. I tell him I will need new paperwork from the office. He gives me where he wants it dropped by I copy it down wrong. Next call is to dispatch. They will let me know. So a couple of more calls to dispatch and we will be dropping at a different location. The rental car will be a little more but not much. Mostly just a pain as we had everything all planned out. The rental car place had called BB an hour or so before my call to confirm that we needed the car. We did then. Now we need a new location. 11th and final stop is the Sleep Inn in Cross Lanes. Huge parking lot. Plan was to walk across the parking lot for food at Cracker Barrel. But when we checked in, we saw that they had evening soup. At first I said no, but when we got to the room I tasted BB's and it was good, just too spicy. So I went back down and asked for a cup for me and extra crackers. They also had popcorn and two kinds of cookies. They suggested we try one of each, so I did. Load board US - 433 IA - 218 MN - 7 WI - 6 The run I had been looking at back to MN was gone first thing this AM and nothing new is interesting. So most likely we will just head straight home from Indy. Not quite straight. We should have enough time to stop and pick up our van and still be home within 24 hours. Lots of good runs, lots of good pairs. Including two no-tows to CA. But random work in the midwest dried up. No new RV's out of IN going near home. ... the trip continues HERE |
