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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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230315 MN-IL 1 trash truck to Dixon IL (Thursday) ... spending the night at home No breakfast as I have an appointment this AM. There I find out I need to make a 2nd appointment for Tuesday and Tuesday I will need to make a 3rd appointment. It kinds of messes up doing even the short trips. In the afternoon we have an appointment at the house, so that is our day today. Later afternoon, I head to my local carrier to make copies of my last trips paperwork. And pick up my next trips paperwork. As often happens, I start talking to someone there. I didn't ask how many drivers are out but this dispatcher said that eight of their drivers broke down this AM. Even if all drivers were out today (they never are) that would be 10% of all drivers were broke down. My guess based on the number of drivers usually working, about 50% of drivers out, broke down today. That doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling about my trip tomorrow. Dispatch thinks they will have a truck to Waterloo by Monday. BUT my 1st truck will likely be ready and I won't have time to do both so likely they will give that one to someone else. Load board (Tuesday) US - 163 IA - 1 MN - 10 WI - 5 Load board (Wednesday) US - 185 IA -0- MN - 9 WI - 1 BB and I talked about leaving today, but it was 4 o'clock and we would only get as far as Rochester IF we don't have issues at pick up. And we would likely have two hotels for a 300 mile trip. That doesn't pay. 230316 MN-IL 1 trash truck to Dixon IL (delivered) ... spending the night at Rockford IL Out of the house by 7 AM. No side stops today. 1st stop is at the shipper. Find the paperwork, find the truck, no issues. BB sees and hears a driver for our long haul carrier, he is having issues. Must not have been too bad as she saw him again at a rest area. Saw two other drivers together. Not sure what was going on with them, I did ask them once where they were going and they said 'no where right now.' When I first saw them, the office person (that we aren't supposed to talk to) was out of her office showing them how to fill out the paper work and telling them that they needed to send it in 24-36 hours after delivery. (We need to send it in from delivery) The next time I saw them, they were telling the office person that they couldn't drive a dual drive, it needed to have a bench seat. Not sure who they work for, but that is up to us to pick which trucks we take, all the shipper does is assign them to the carrier. ... then we left. 2nd stop was the Kwik Trip for fuel and scale. Underweight this time so we are free to go. 3rd stop for me is the Kwik Trip in Mauston. BB had gone ahead and gotten food from the Log Cabin Deli. FINALLY we are here on a Thursday and I have lasagna. Very good, twice as much as I can eat. It's in the low 40's so I put in in the trunk. I try to call the shipper with the number on the paperwork. It is a call center, I have a choice of 'residential pickup' or 'business pickup.' I pick one and talk to someone, they claim they can not give me the direct number and will leave a message for my drop to call me. I say no thanks, that will become telephone tag. Later I am talking to dispatch and they have been leaving messages for three days and no one has called them back, glad I didn't leave a message ... It's been raining most of the day. At first it was just a mist. But it was enough that I couldn't see out of my windows easily or see my mirrors. Ziegler ... is the Midwest CAT dealer and when CAT got into the ag business, they did also. I just noticed today that Ziegler Ag now has a new logo on their highway signs and tonight I am seeing that same logo on their website. I also see they are also a Claas dealer. The rest of their equipment is under the AGCO brand. 4th kinda stop is at the DeForest exit ramp because my check engine light has come on. Dispatch will call the manufacture and they can trouble shoot it while I drive. 5th kinda stop is at the Janesville rest area. Just long enough to see if I have any messages and to let BB know where I am. She is there also but for some reason my messages aren't coming through ... when they do, she calls me and I have to pull over to answer the phone. 6th kinda stop is roadside near Rochelle when dispatch calls me back. They let me know I am OK to deliver and that the shipper has finally called them back. When I pass Rochelle, I still have 3/8 of a tank of fuel. I haven't looked close at a map but I think I have about 5-10 miles to go so I'll be good on fuel. It is actually over 30 miles to the drop and I am down below where I am supposed to be at for delivery. But no fuel stops the last 30 miles. We did see one truckstop, but it likely closed when the freeway was built 60 years ago. Building still stands. This is on US 30 which was likely the main road before the freeway. I had assumed we would be delivering tomorrow so I hadn't looked at the exact drop. By now BB is behind me and blows her horn when I miss a turn, I decide to back up instead of find a place to turn around. Then I turn where I shouldn't, so then BB takes the lead. She follows her GPS and takes us to a closed gate so I still need to turn around again. Finally ... 7th stop is the shipper. They do a good inspection but don't comment or note the fuel level ... whew. It is 5 PM when we leave the shipper, this location is open past 6 PM, unlike the one Monday who was only open until 4 PM. We would have been here the night. 8th stop is a Road Ranger in Dixon for the rest room and food for BB. I eat my leftover lasagna, BB gets snacky stuff. 9th and final stop is the Sleep Inn in Rockford. It is 6:30 when we get there so an 11 hour day. And it is still light so we go for a short walk, first time in months. On the way back, I have a craving for something sweet so we stop at the high class place next to the hotel and the best they have is some carrot cake. One piece. Load board US - 208 IA - 1/0 MN - 16 WI - 4 Local dispatch didn't mention any work for tomorrow ... I was trying to ask on the phone but they had already hung up. At that point I wanted to get delivered ASAP so I didn't call them back. Now we are looking at the loadboard for the long haul carrier and they have a short one near Rockford and another short one near home. IF, if things go well, we might be able to get both of them tomorrow. We'll see, BB was pretty sleepy today and shut down about 8 PM tonight. 230317 IL-WI 1 tanker truck to Madison WI (delivered) ... spending the night at home At 7 AM, we call the east coast dispatchers. As I do with other dispatchers, I just say the pickup city name. This dispatcher says 'What about it?' So I had to say the full information about the trip I wanted. It was still there so I got it. When the paperwork came, there were notes that I had to be sure and call both the pickup and drop before arriving. I tried calling the shipper, no answer, no voicemail. I tried calling their office ... another automated answering machine with limited options. So I call the drop, there I get an answer. They only have the same shipper info I do but they can look on the computer and see that my contact is not in the office today. Shipper's voicemail was full so I decided to text them. An hour later I get a text back with the contact info of someone on-site. When we went down for breakfast I looked for a hotel computer, there was one, but it was not turned on. I asked the desk clerk if it was working and they said yes. And when I came down later to print my paperwork, the computer was on so it took only a couple of minutes to print what I needed. It was raining most of yesterday and into the evening/night. And then it froze, so lots of ice on the windows. Today we don't head out until 8:15 after all the phone calls. 1st stop is the shipper. Locked gate. So we need to call the on-site contact to get let in and that takes a few minutes. We had planned on leaving the hotel at 7:30 and for everything to go like clockwork :) . Both BB and I looked for the battery switch as the truck was totally dead. I ended up going into the shop and the first person I saw could tell me right where it was, and by that time BB had also found it. Black on black and I hadn't seen it. Only issue was both the fuel and DEF gauges were on 1/8th. To conserve fuel, I kept the truck at 55 mph once I got on the freeway. Within a mile or so, I got a message saying "25% Engine Derate - Refill with DEF." It didn't slow me down anymore than I was so kept it at 55 mph. BB followed me to the exit where the truckstops were and then headed on. BB was going to an IL Oasis because her I-pass had quit working. Turns out it the battery ran out a few months earlier than expected. They just exchange the I-pass for a new one. Mine are newer because my old ones were in my back pack that was stolen a few years ago. 2nd stop was the TA in Hampton for fuel and DEF. I looked over at the Loves when I pulled in and all the fuel islands were full. There were enough empty pumps at the TA that I was able to pull in backwards so I could get DEF at the pump. I had about 100 miles to go so I guessed and put in 10 gallons. Guessing I might get about 10 mpg. 30+ miles before my drop, my low fuel light comes on. We <> are not supposed to deliver any unit with the low fuel light on. So ... 3rd stop was the Road Range in Cottage Grove. OK, I must be getting closer to 7 mpg so I put in another 6 gallons to cover the miles and leave a little extra. No one else at the station so I didn't bother to pull ahead when I went in for a receipt. If I had moved the truck, I might have seen that the low fuel light was still on ... I did notice it when I was leaving the station but guessed it would go off. So for the next 10 miles I'm debating what I should do. The truck has the 1/8th tank of fuel that most shippers require, but the low fuel light is not supposed to be on. I guess that I should be able to put in another couple of gallons ... 4th non-stop was a BP that was at the same exit as the drop. No diesel. 5th stop is a Kwik Trip in Madison with one diesel pump and one in and one out. Here it is auto-diesel so the pumps run slower. I stand in the door of my truck watching for the low fuel light to go out. It finally goes out at 1/4th of tank of fuel. I have now put in $30 more in fuel than if I had not let the low fuel light come on. Not sure if it is just this truck but I will be more careful in the future. (even with the extra fuel I put in this truck, I still kept twice as much 'fuel money' as I put in the truck) A VERY good paying trip. These extra stops have also taken an extra half hour so it is now after 12 noon and we had thought we'd be dropped by as early as 10:30. 6th stop is the drop. No fence around the office here, but seems to be one in the back around the trucks. I go into the office to make sure I am at the right place. They are happy to see me. The guy signs my paperwork as soon as he has walked around the truck. He doesn't want any paperwork and is ready to move the truck as I am still grabbing my stuff out the other door. When I get to the car, BB tells me that the 2nd trip we were looking at is gone, so we will be deadheading the rest of the way home. That trip was from Eau Claire back to MN. 7th stop was the rest area near Poynette. While BB was busy, I called local dispatch to line up work for Monday. I first asked if they had work in WI for today but they didn't. So far, it sounds like they will have us pick up and stage three trucks on Monday. And I may get to deliver one of those trucks. It will be nice to do something other than trash trucks. Trash trucks. Our long haul company has one near here in WI heading back to Dodge Center ... but it is likely one of the brand I am trying to stay away from. And we wouldn't have time to deliver it yet today and so I'd have to check if we could deliver on Saturday. Likely could but I didn't ask. While I am talking to local dispatch, a call is beeping in but they don't leave a message. But the number has me curious. I look on texts, it is from my dispatcher for my truck this AM. So I call them back. They want to know if I can move the truck from SD to WI that has been on the load board for a week. Sorry. I don't have enough work days in a row to do that trip. But I have been watching it, hoping I get something heading in that direction. But now we have enough of next week lined up that it won't happen next week either. 8th stop was the Old Log Deli in Mauston again :) After we got our sandwiches we were talking to the staff as it was empty and I was saying how good the lasagna was yesterday ... so I asked if they had leftovers. They did. Three pieces :) So we took all three, plus our sandwiches. ... and tomorrow we are getting together with family to cook ... lasagna. 9th stop was the Target in Hudson for supplies. 10th and final stop was home Load board US - 173 IA - 1 MN - 8 WI - 19 We are now off for the weekend and again on Tuesday.
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