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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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211101 MN Dr's visits for both of us today so no work and because we were still in town I planned a family day for Tuesday. Lot's of work including a few longer MN-MN auction trips. Late in the day there were two trips heading to CA that looked good but we would have to leave Tuesday if we grabbed them today and I have plans. And BB looked at the weather and WY might have bad weather by the time we got there. So we waited and within the hour one of them was gone. But I did look at rental cars and there are some listed and back to pre-Covid prices. There is also a new one. Turo. A personal car listing website, like an AirB and B. Country wide the auction list is way up but a good share of the closest trips for us were heading to different parts of the country. Some day we may try it, not today. Right now we have over three weeks before we need to be back for anything so hopefully more CA work shows up and we will be leaving. Sat Sun Load board US - 277 IA - 62/58 MN - 7 WI - 15 Monday US - 277 IA - 82/81 MN - 4 WI - 14 211102 IA-CA 2 RV's, 1 to Reno NV, 1 to Manteca CA (Wednesday) ... spending the night at home I was NA today but BB was watching the load board and got us these two trips. That is what was on the board at the same time. The one from yesterday was gone, at the end of the day there was one other CA left in the northern half of the state. Now we have 5 days to get 1,700 miles. But if we didn't take the trips today, someone else would and then we would still be waiting. LIKELY what we will do is get as many miles as we can tomorrow and Thursday. The weather looks best in eastern WY on Thursday so we want to knock that off ASAP. If the forecast is wrong, then we have a couple of days to get those 200 miles in WY. If we make it Rawlins Thursday, then Friday we get to SLC or Wendover. Saturday we sit. If we are only going to have one permit for NV it will be for 10 AM Sunday thru 10 AM Monday. Doing it this way I won't need a shut down once I am in a bus ... if I get one. Today there is a truck in the SFO area coming back to WI. It will likely be gone tomorrow. It's not often there is one leaving the Rocky Mtn area. Load board US - 298 IA - 75 MN - 4 WI - 14 211103 IA-CA 2 RV's, 1 to Reno NV, 1 to Manteca CA ... spending the night at Grand Island NE Alarm at 6 AM, leave the house a little after 7:30. No noticeable rush hour traffic. 1st stop is Northwood IA for the rest area. Just coming into town there was new road kill with feathers still flying. Someone had hit a wild turkey. 2nd stop is the shipper. When dispatch handed us our paperwork, I said something about 'getting something that wasn't being flatbedded.' That got their attention. One of them was the boss and he wanted to talk to me about getting me into one of those trucks. No thanks. Today took us about 45 minutes. It has been taking us about 30 but that is when we are only taking one RV so both of us are inspection the one unit. Poor timing on our part. We see this AM that the auction dispatcher has three metro to metro ones. We could have done all three of those in one day and been paid really good. Then IA put out two more going to Gilroy. More miles and both going to the same drop. There were two on Monday and now two on Wednesday ... but we picked our work on Tuesday. 3rd stop was Pilot in Clear Lake for fuel and food. Subway. Temps are about 40 degrees so we eat inside. I see a message come in while I am driving but do not look at it until we are stopped. My Mom has tested positive for Covid. Not good. She is 90+ and not in good health. 4th stop is the rest area in Ankeny. I didn't realize I had parked where the lines are yellow, opps. So I move and then next person coming in parks there. Oh well. 5th stop is the rest area in Adair. Shortly after our stop in Adair we see an accident in the oncoming traffic. I hadn't noticed there wasn't any oncoming traffic before we got there ... usually I notice those things. Not sure what happened, it looked like a semi in the left lane drove sideways into a trailer in the right lane. Pretty hard to do with two lanes but it was buried in there. There wasn't a whole lot of traffic just parked there, they must have gotten the road shut down pretty quickly or a lot of people made u-turns in the median. Then at the next exit they were routing traffic off the freeway. Not sure why, but they might have had a dozen people blocking the left lane before the exit. I didn't look at the mile markers but my guess would be traffic was backed up for the exit about 10 miles. Oversized load were allowed to park on the freeway and wait for it to re-open. 6th stop was at the Kum and Go in Gretna for fuel. Easier to get in and out of than the Quick Trip. BB is busy making hotel reservations so I ask if I should re-start her fuel pump when it shut off. No. So I hung it up and got her her receipt. Somewhere down the road she realizes her tank is not full. So now we need to stop for fuel in Cozad tomorrow. I'm not sure if I will add fuel there or not. Did see a co-driver with an RV at the Kum and Go but didn't talk to them. From the Kum and Go I called my drop. 2:30 is the latest I can get an appointment. And BB had to drop in Reno that AM. But IF we get to her drop when they open, then we will have three hours to play with. I had thought of calling the west coast/bus dispatcher to let him know I am on my way ... but this trip I might wait until I am delivered on Monday. Plans are always changing. 7th is the Arby's in York for food. This is where we would stop during Covid as they always had the dining area open. Not today ... so we go next door to McDonald's. Now they are open for dining in. And the had the McRib so I didn't mind. Not very fast service. The Super 8 next door was closed all last year and now it looks like it is mostly a new building since we were here last a few months ago. Not open yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if it opens as something nicer than a Super 8. 8th and final stop, the Quality Inn in Grand Island. 12 hour day, hopefully it is worth it. The last hour was driving after dark. Load board US - 302 IA - 79/75 MN - 8 WI - 13 211104 IA-CA 2 RV's, 1 to Reno NV, 1 to Manteca CA ... spending the night at Rawlins WY No alarm, but of us were up just before it would have gone off. Breakfast is in the restaurant that isn't open at the moment. Buffet style. Not a lot of choices but lots of what there is. Today was eggs and sausage and OJ. Not quite sunup when we got going. Clear to the east for the daylight but foggy as soon as we got on the freeway heading west. 1st stop is Cozad for fuel at Caseys (because BB shorted herself yesterday) She adds fuel, I don't. I still have an excess range of 40 miles. When BB is coming out of the store and walking across the lot, a large semi is coming through the car area and blows it's horn. BB tried to run, that doesn't work too well yet. My guess is someone had put their car in reverse is why he blew his horn. 2nd stop is Ogallala for fuel at WalMart. Over $1 between high and low fuel prices at this exit. This will be the cheapest fuel of the trip. Good news. My Mom seems to be better today, back up and around as much as she does any day. Hopefully that was it for her and Covid. Because we just crossed the time zone it is even 10 AM here so too early for lunch. 3rd stop is Loves in Sidney for Taco Johns. I tried their street taco today. I didn't think it was that good ... until I tried their regular taco's. :( BB wasn't happy with their food either. I don't remember it being this bad in the past. The temp was 65 degrees when we left, but there were still snow piles in the corners of the parking lot. Not sure when it was from. There is another RV driveaway driver in the parking lot but we don't talk to him. We also have passed a UPS truck in transit, seen an Amazon truck and met a few other driveaway units today including two city buses. The first was all white. The second was white and blue and had the word 'Metro' on it. That doesn't help much. Coming into WY, the overhead highway signs are warning of 'Wind gusts 65+ mph' starting at 6 PM tonight. We plan to be off the road by 4:30. Later, further in, there are signs warning of winds 30+ right now. My cruise kicked off three times before shutting down. But with these Dodge's, it is just a matter of hitting resume. On the Mercedes, the unit has to be restarted to be able to re-set the cruise. 4th stop was the POE for our permits near Burns. Easy when you have everything ready. At times I could see the RV ahead of us on the freeway but not at the POE. Either he didn't need to stop or he just didn't. Also saw two trucks with the same name as my local company. So I took a picture, but didn't look at the picture then. It didn't turn out. ... OPPS !!! Almost a very big opps, coming through Cheyenne I saw two trucks right ahead of me switching lanes so I glanced at my mirror and switched .... BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP Someone was in my blind spot and I had not looked over my shoulder. The other person hit the shoulder to avoid me. Luckily there was a shoulder between the road and the guard cable. 5th stop was the Sinclear in Laramie for fuel. Called the bus dispatcher and said who I was ... 'You picked the right day to call.' So I had to tell him I wouldn't be there until Monday. 'We will see you Monday then.' So I'm guessing there is and will be work. 6th and final stop was the Comfort Inn in Rawlins. Penny's Diner was our food. the only non-fast food on the this end of town. Food was OK, actually the Philly was really good but ... the forgot our French dressing for the salads, the gave me both fries and salad instead of just a salad, salad had lettuce and two pieces of tomato and was called a 'garden salad.' Don't know our plan for the rest of the trip yet. Our NV permits are only for one day so we need to plan around that. Load board US - 345 IA - 77/73 MN - 6 WI - 18 211105 IA-CA 2 RV's, 1 to Reno NV, 1 to Manteca CA ... spending the night at Lake Point UT No alarm, short day. So we are up at 5 AM local ... This place is still being remodeled so the breakfast area is the front desk. We saw the fridge, but then the clerk said their was also hot food that they could dish up. Eggs and bacon, lots of bacon. I end up bringing a few of the strips with to eat later tonight. My mind was drifting elsewhere, I did not see the 'big dig' today. 1st stop was in Green River at the Love's for fuel. $.35 less than where we used to stop at the Shell station. This is when I call dispatch to see if we can get a NV permit for two days, we can. 2nd stop was an Arby's in Evanston. It was only 11 AM local so they were just opening. The temps have risen from about freezing up to the 50's so we were able to eat outside again. 3rd and final stop(s) in Lake Point. First we put in fuel at the Flying J, I put in enough to get to Battle Mountain where fuel is cheaper. I am four miles short in range but the range goes up and down. When picked up in IA my mpg was under 8, now it is up to 14.3. I am hoping for 15 mpg and the current mpg is around 17. Then we drive across the street to the Comfort Inn. It is only 1:30 local but we are able to check in. Not sure how often they have evening soup, but they do tonight. Loaded potato soup at 3 PM local. So that is when we head back down. Then I top mine off with some of the bacon from this morning :) But that was not enough so about 6 PM we head back over to the Flying J for some shelf food. First we looked at the pizza and then looked at other things. When we came back to the pizza, they only had one piece left that we wanted. So I ended up with a Philly and a piece of pizza. I was full before I ate the pizza so that went in the fridge. As soon as we checked in I called for permits. We thought we had it all planned out, then they asked one question that caught us off guard. The 1st permit will only get us to the 1st night, then that permit is done. So we can not start on Saturday until our 2nd permit is good. It tightens the time frame a little but there aren't any good hotels past Elko. We had hoped to get to Winnemucca but we looked online before we called for permits and the two Choice hotels in town are full. Good thing we looked ahead of time. There is a Best Western but that was way over $100. As are most of the hotels in Reno on Sunday night. There is a Quality Inn that is cheaper but it has a small parking lot. These RV's will fit if we get there early but I wouldn't stay there with anything bigger. Load board US - 291 IA - 61/58 MN - 5 WI - 16 Sunday are plans are to get another 300 miles, so 500 miles in two days instead of one day. That Quality Inn is about 6 miles from the drop. 8 AM is the earliest we can drop. Some times it goes quickly, last time I wonder if they forgot about me. We have about three hours for them to do a half hour inspection. Hopefully not an issue. ... the trip continues HERE |
