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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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230321 MN-WI 1 tanker truck to Janesville WI (delivered) ... spending the night at Mauston WI I had a medical appointment this AM and a possibly another appointment so as of the weekend I had not planned on working at all today/Tuesday. By yesterday AM that began to change and by mid-afternoon we knew we were going to be doing Wednesday's trip Tuesday. It turned out that my appointment only lasted 15 minutes so we would have been time ahead if BB had rode with me this AM and then we could have gone direct to work a couple of miles away. But we didn't think ahead so after the appointment I head back to pick up BB. At the office was a driver waiting for orientation. He had quit during Covid and now was getting bored. I don't think I had ever done a road trip with him but we did plenty of shuttle trips to Crookston together. I did yesterday's paperwork and then picked up today's paperwork. My inspection only took a few minutes as I had done a detailed inspection yesterday. As soon as I was ready to go, I called the drop. Again, an AI answering machine. I was able to get someone by selection the closest option but they would not connect me. They did get someone on another line and it sounded like 'Tomorrow delivery would be better.' But at the end, they did give me a couple of on-site phone numbers. ... listed close time is 4 PM. It will be close. 2nd stop was the TA in Hudson for fuel. It's the first truck stop and by then I was down to 1/8th of a tank. BB also fueled our chase car. 3rd stop was the Kwik Trip in Black River Falls for lunch. A quick rib sandwich for each and we were in and out in 15 minutes. Lots of jockeying for position on the freeway. I do remember one old Cadillac that seemed to me to have come out of no-where as I hadn't seen it when I changed lanes. 4th stop is the rest area before Janesville. It is almost 3:30. I am in luck, someone picks up and will take the truck yet tonight. Very short stop. I had looked at the map provided by dispatch and BB had talked about how to get there but I had never run the route as I didn't think we'd be delivering today. ... Maps had us 'walking a straight line from the freeway.' No detailed acurrate routing. I did a quick look at the streets and had an idea of where I was going. But I missed a main cross road where I was supposed to have turned. I was likely a mile past when I looked again and realized what I had done. Quickly corrected and likely only lost about five minutes. 5th stop is the drop in Janesville. I call as soon as I am parked and my contact comes out, does one walk around, signs the paperwork and says leave it here, we will move it. ... easy. BB has pulled in in the couple of minutes I was there. We are good to go ... But ... The trips we had been checking on that had been out there for days are both gone. $$ gone because I won't commit before I am sure, very sure, that I can make it. Now there are two trips out of IA that will work but I call my local dispatch first to see if they have work for me. For the last couple of days it sounded like they could give me twice the work I could do. -0- Nothing for me for tomorrow. And now one of the pair of IA trips is already gone. There is really nothing that is great so we head in the direct of home. By the time we decide that the best trip on the load board is taking just the one remaining IA trip, it is also gone. So we decide to head a couple of hours in the direction of home and get a hotel. We could get home yet tonight. We could have for sure if we had planned ahead this AM but we thought with all the work there was this AM that we'd be heading to more work. 6th stop is the rest area near Poynette. Somewhere in this area we see to cop cars on the shoulder with someone pulled over. :) it is the same Caddy as we saw this AM. Both BB and I recognized it. Timing is going to be close but we could make it to the Old Log Deli again. 7th stop is the Old Log Deli in Mauston again :) We are there twenty minutes before they close so we aren't just squeaking in. But we are likely the last customers. Someone else did come in afterwards and the staff asked them if 'they were going to order or if they were just looking (at the shelf items.) They took it the wrong way and left. 8th stop was across the freeway at the Quality Inn. After eating half our food, we take a short walk before settling in. Load board US - 172 IA - 2 MN - 10 WI - 11 NC - 20 (3 to midwest) Right now, the two best options are a truck to Fargo and a trash truck to Milwaukee. The truck to MLW is the one kind I don't want to drive right now. So the other is an option. We most likely will watch the load board early and then call local dispatch again by 9 AM. Not sure what it will take to do the Fargo truck, there have been a few and we have always found reasons not to do them.
230322 MN-MN 2 chassis to Plymouth MN (final miles) 1 tanker truck to Grove City OH (staged) 1 bus to MD (re-parked) 1 truck to Libertyville IL (Thursday) ... spending the night at home No alarm, we plan on watching the load board and then calling local dispatch later in the AM. We did go down for breakfast. When I opened the door to walk out of our room ... one of those little yappy dogs ran in. It was on a leash so it didn't get far but it made a lot of noise. And BB hates dogs, especially those. And getting caught off guard first thing in the AM ... she wouldn't leave the room until the dogs had left the building. Worst than someone being scared of spiders or snakes, more like getting confronted by a mugger for a few seconds before the run away. When I did call my usual dispatcher, the one for trash trucks, I got someone else and was told the dispatcher I wanted no longer worked there. After 20 years I know better than to ask questions on the phone or anywhere in the building where someone else might here them. IF we can talk outside, sometimes I may get some insight. This is the dispatcher I had a long talk with last week. I know they won't miss the place, but depending on what happened they may not be happy about not working. I am told they have two trucks in the lot that need to go to a local company. So we head three hours back to move a couple of trucks 35 miles. I don't ask, my guess it is the same two trucks that I picked up a couple of days ago. 1st stop is the Loves in Oakdale, we need gas. And we found out that the Love's $.10 off offer is not valid in NJ and WI. 2nd stop is home. I forgot my phone charge yesterday and plugging my phone into any other USB type port does not work. It SAYS it is charging but my battery power keeps going down, even when plugged in. Now we eat our leftovers from last night for our breakfast. BB is trying to do the random fasting routine. 3rd stop is the office/lot. I don't always remember to check my VIN but today I did and it was wrong. Wrong digits, missing digit. So I had to get that corrected before I left. When this is going on, my phone decides it doesn't want to work. On messages and email it will not display the 'send' icon. I was trying to send dispatch pictures of the VIN's but I had to walk in to the office instead. And at one point I had an all white screen for a while. (Now tonight, I am trying to run the battery down at it has been playing YouTube video's for almost an hour on 1%. It just won't die) 4th stop was the Holiday in Plymouth for fuel. We are to deliver with 1/4 tank of fuel and this was right at 1/4 on a digital meter. So, to make sure it didn't drop before delivery, I added another bar to the meter. But by the time I was a few feet from the pump it was back to 1/4. But I knew it wouldn't drop another bar just driving across the street. 5th stop was the shipper, or today, the drop. The guy I used to talk to had his door open so I stopped and asked he knew who 'was retiring and had a CDL.' Neither he nor the other person in the office knew who I was talking about ... then he mentioned that he had talked to my dispatcher about a friend of his ... From there we got talking quite a while about all kinds of things. When we got to the topic of trucks, this truck, he said the person who now does it is not in so he went to look for my keys. No ... not this time. I am BRINGING you a truck. He is confused, so we end up back in the main office anyways. No one knows anything so we head out to the truck. In the door, there is a sticker that says who the truck is for. It all makes sense now. Sort of. Except the truck is the wrong color for that customer ... and the fuel tank is in the wrong place for this shipper. They can't put their existing tanks on for that customer without moving the fuel tank. They still sign for the truck and ... laugh. I tell them I will be back. 6th stop is back at the office. We pick up the 2nd truck, no issues with this one. 7th stop is the Holiday in Plymouth. Same as last time. ... and BB says that dispatch has called her. (She doesn't even work there, but somehow they still have her number from when she did ... seven years ago?) They want me to pick up a truck at where I am dropping and I wasn't picking up my phone ... I was driving. 8th stop is the shipper/drop. Now I know who I am supposed to see. But both the shipper and the dispatcher for this truck are knew and things haven't been done correctly. Yet. The shipper sends out the correct person to inspect the truck and by the time I find the correct truck. All I have is a key, someone else is bringing out my paperwork. 9th stop is back at the office/lot. Earlier, one of the dispatchers had asked if I would move a bus. A 60 footer. Someone drove it into a parking spot and in needs to be backed in. I was able to do it without moving any of the other vehicles. It took me a couple of minutes to get the feel for it but once I got the rhythm I was able to get it done. No key for the exterior doors and the high beams are stuck on, but other than that ... At some point today I agreed to do a truck to IL tomorrow. They close at 2 PM so we would have to leave at 6 AM to make delivery in one day. Or we could have left tonight and gotten a couple of hours down the road. Instead we are leaving tomorrow later and deliver first thing on Friday AM. I had thought we might pick up something short after we drop but we have another storm coming in and BB doesn't want to get caught in it. Load board US - 177 IA - 4 MN - 8 WI - 14 Tomorrow we will get going sometime in the AM and get south of Milwaukee to stay for the night.
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