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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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230119 MN ... spending the night at home We had rushed home because of snow. And it snowed. We shoveled. Nothing works on the load board for us either because of the weather, cars or pay. Nothing pays great, everything today is right at the low end and not worth it if we were to get delayed. Load board US - 173 IA - 53/51 MN - 1 230120 MN-MN 1 Pickup to Shakopee MN (delivered) ... spending the night at home Nothing looked good yesterday, nothing new was put on the load board after hours, so we call at 8 AM eastern and get a local, one day trip. After an hour and a half, I call dispatch back and they have just gotten the paperwork. We head out. Our printer is not working to print out the paperwork so we need to stop at a truck stop. 1st stop is the Love's in Columbus/Forest Lake. It opened some time last year and this is the first time we have stopped here. As long as we are stopped, we fuel our car. Our paperwork costs $2 a page but is easy to deal with at this truckstop chain. From here I called the shipper. No one will be at the truck, grab and go. 2nd stop is the rest area near Barnum. We are messaging with other and making summer vacation plans ... and we miss our exit a mile down the road from the rest area. ... and the next exit is seven miles down the road. First time every (?) that I have seen the scale near Carlton open. Right before the scale there is an exit but all must trucks must cross the scale. Today they even had a patrol sitting on the ramp waiting for those that can't read. He had one truck stopped when we went past, while we could still see him, he backed up the ramp to wait for the next victim. 3rd stop was the shipper. Wide spot on the side of a side road. Truck was buried in snow, we had brought both a shovel and a snow brush. We used the brush but not the shovel. All checks out with the truck but it is the first one in a while for this shipper that I will need to put in fuel. 4th stop is Hinkley for food and fuel. My stats say I am getting 16 mpg but the meter looks more like I am making around 20 mpg. I go with the 20 and put in 8 gallons. And we get food from White Castle. They had a sign for making your table reservations for Valentines day. They have one counter, facing the wall, with five stools. ??? Maybe they are adding tables into the convenience store? 6th stop was the drop in Shakopee. We had to wait a while for a train that was pulling cars out of a side track. Took an extra few minutes. Dropped, signed. Just under six hours, as planned. We sit in the lot for a while looking a the load board. Plan was to head home if nothing looked good. We had two hours before the loadboard closed but we decided we would not wait. 7th stop was the Noodles & Co in Woodbury. 8th and final stop was home. Nothing does show up so we have no plans for the weekend. Load board US - 135 IA - 31/29 MN - 2 230121 MN ... spending the night at home BB was awake at 2 AM doing the math in her head on the trips on the load board. We are up and talking by 7 AM. Finally she starts making comments that she is so tired that she can't think straight. We stop talking about taking any work today. There are trips heading to CO, the northeast and local. But all are marginal on the $$$ end. I could also call the local company but I've told them I am NA until later this week. Ahh ... later this (next) week. We only have one car and BB has plans on Thursday all day and part of the next couple of days so I can't have any plans ... unless someone comes and gets me. Then next Sunday we have plans with family. After that ... Jan 30 ... we are free until ??? Hopefully by then there is better paying work. We have the time to do it. Load board US - 134 IA - 23/22 MN - 2 WI - 6 We are hoping that the rental dispatcher puts more work on the load board early Monday AM. There are two trips that could work, if we want them. Fargo to Owattona. And a two legged trip from IA to MLW and then back to Dodge Center. Marginal work, but it is work. |
