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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 44 - New IH - Refer ... to Wilmington, NC Trip 44b - Used IH - Refer ... from Wilmington, NC I knew that over the weekend there had been five more cement trucks so I half offered to take one ... if they could send me with someone to help cut the costs coming back ... and yes they had one left. By my next phone call they offered me a run to CA that would pay over $1,000 for four days work ... but before that got firmed up it was given to another driver who could leave NOW (I couldn't leave for 24 hours, which would require a Saturday delivery) ... then my choices were either to Saint Louis or Dallas, both were with other drivers and would require a lot of dead miles ... finally we were back to NC, but with a round trip ... as long as I would share the trip back with two other drivers. All this happened over the course of a couple of hours on Monday ... 6/15/04 - 8 AM dispatch ... I'm a few minutes late and the other driver is waiting ... I have to first take a used truck to our depot and drop off the other driver, then drive another two hours to our customer where I will pickup up my truck. Not a bid fan of these side trips, but today it's not a problem ... This run is just over two days and any extra legs are extra income ... and I have time to fill. Dispatch has said I won't be able to meet the driver until after his run ... if that holds true, I could have up to six hours to wait in NC. We have a new dispatcher, another one ... this one is supposed to only handle inbound runs. Guess that means they expect to get more inbound runs. Don't think our boss would hire another body if he wasn't fairly sure he was going to make money on it ... and one way they are going to make money is by paying us five cents less for inbound / return runs than outbound runs. This 'pay cut' also applies to the inbound runs we have been doing for current customers ... but if it means getting paid $300 for the way home instead of paying $200 should be worth it. Doing the extra leg also delayed me enough to miss the CGO rush hour ... an uneventful day. I make it as far as Lafayette, IN ... I had seen billboards advertising a Knights Inn for $29 and a Days Inn for $39 ... and there are about a dozen motels at this exit. First, I go for the Knights Inn "No Trucks" was the sign on the driveway ... at the Days Inn, I was told I would need to parking the the Lafayette Inn parking lot ... and their "$39 rooms are gone. We are over 90% capacity." So I went to the Lafayette Inn as they had truck parking ... and was able to get a room at the truckers rate for $35. But by now it was 9 PM and the two closest restaurants were closed so I had to walk about 3/4 mile to get to a Stake and Shake and this time had a shake with my meal ... good stuff. Did walk past a DQ and White Castle to get here. 6/16/04 - On my last trip to NC we made our own route, this time I plan on following it to the letter ... plan ... Last night I wrote my basic routes on the back of a business card, problem is ... I wrote down I-70 to COL (Columbus) then I-75 south to US 35 east ... problem is went all the way through Columbus and didn't see an I-75 and finally looked at a map ... I-75 goes through Dayton, not Columbus ... and I passed Dayton an hour plus ago. I opt to stay on the Interstate to I-77 another 100 miles ahead ... I do the math later and it looks like my mistake cost me over an hour (on paper ... after I travel the suggested route, I'm guessing it's a wash). Good news is I'm not paying the fuel, I chose the flat per mile. I push on and make it into NC before my 11 hours are up ... my 'suggested route' says take NC 89, 15 miles to US 52 ... turns out I cross under I-74 which has replaced my route a few years ago ... guess the boss can't afford to get the upgraded computer software ... I've been watching for a cheap motel ... no billboards, few towns ... didn't find anything in my coupon books ... didn't help I didn't really know where I was, what towns were coming up next. Finally as I'm on this two lane road called NC 89 I see a billboard for a couple of motels, including a Knights Inn ... the guy first said rooms were $49, after asking about any discounts he finally came down to $45 ... being out of hours I stayed ... then back at my room a couple hours later I'm looking at my coupons again and see a coupon for this motel ...$39 ... So he could have given it to me for less, but by now he had run it on my card so I didn't go back. It was one of the nicer kept Knights Inn's ... could just be the house keeping. Had a good meal across the street ... planned on eating at Aunt (somebody's), instead ate at Goodbe's (?) ... another great Phillycheesesteak sandwich ... Oh ... this is the home of Maybarry ... so it was fitting when someone ran into the ditch right in front of the restaurant ... so the two cops eating there could walk out the front door and take charge ... why send the cops to the accident when you can bring the accident to the cops. And this little nose dive into the ditch, they missed the driveway by a car length, brought two more squads ... guess this was big time in a small town. A little after 9 PM local time as I'm sitting eating, I get a call on my cell from tomorrow drop ... "How about we meet mid-day tomorrow? It'll save you a couple of hours by not having to drive all the way to the warehouse ..." (and would get me going, and home, a few hours earlier) 6/17/04 - Had hoped to be south of Releigh last night and only have two hours to go and all day to do it, instead I have about five hours to go and five hours to do it ... so I have to get as early a start as possible. Traffic's not bad for rush hour around Winston-Salem and by the time I get to Raleigh Durham it's late morning. I get to my revised exit and wait for a phone call ... the first one I get is from dispatch saying I won't be sharing the ride home, and would I still get home soon enough? With plenty of time on my hands I did the math ... in most cases, it doesn't matter how many drivers you have, you won't (legally) be home any sooner. Finally get a call from my contact, he says he's about 15 minutes away and I can go wait in the parking lot of his next customer ... an hour later he shows up, he decided to squeeze in one more customer on his way to meet me. Not a problem, I am still hours ahead ... and the little delay gave me time to pace the parking lot and do something besides sit. Now we have something else to do besides sit ... transfer all his cases of product from the old truck to the new. Thought I might catch a good case of the chills but it felt kind of good ... by now it was noon and I guessing well into the 90's ... so being inside of a 10 degree cooler working up a sweat was ... much better than throwing hay bales in this kind of weather. Didn't look at the exact time but I'm guessing it took us under a half hour to move the cases ... by the time we were half done, I could tell I was out of shape ... and then I started to tell it in my legs, found some mussels I hadn't used for a while ... Page 2 - The trip home .... |