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...My Life as 'Drive away' driver
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Trip 64d - New Chev - Box ... to Morehead, KY 11/18/04 - Back to the lot to pickup the other drivers truck to use as our shuttle for returning the rental car ... should have bought that gas can ... there isn't any diesel in any direction for 10 plus miles. We stop at the first station we see, they don't have any but everyone there has a set of directions to get us to some ... none of which we find. after about 20 miles we find a station ... I top of the car here and loose this receipt, must have paid cash, can't find record of it on my credit card. Another few miles we are at the airport ... not very well marked but we do find it ... with 10 minutes to spare. Wasn't thinking about these small town airports closing early ... didn't look good when I walked in, most of the lights were out and the cleaning crew as sitting by the door to clean the last few feet after locking the doors ... the only place still open was Avis ... and the rest rooms. This could have cost us another day ... ouch. On the way back to the lot we stop at another gas station where I do buy a gas can and some diesel ... glad I did, after pouring the two gallons in my truck, I could see the gauge had moved .. not off of 'E' ... but it had moved ... it should ... get me the 12 miles to our closest station. It did ... and the closest station would be closing a half hour after we were there ... if we had lost an hour in traffic today or for any reason, we'd have been spending the night here ... and so far I still have ... slight hopes ... of getting all this mess done and being ready to leave for CA sometime Sunday. Finally 6 hours after we arrive at the lot today, we are finally ready to roll ... ahhh ... six hours 'wasted' on day one and another six 'wasted' today ... So far we are still running legal ... even if you count the hours in the rental car this AM, but it still makes me nervous when we cross our first scale and the other guy gets flagged to re-weigh ... I keep going ... slow ... and still can't see him by the next exit so I exit to wait. But by the time I can cross traffic the other driver is back on my tail. Flying J, finally some cheaper fuel ... the other driver is wanting to run all night ... I'm not. I do make it to 2 AM again ... 18 hours after we got rolling this AM. When I pull into the Motel 6 is when the other guy says he's not getting a motel and will keep going to his drop, I can meet him in the AM. Oh well, I'm not going any further ... I'm getting old and need my sleep, some anyway ... five hours at minimum ... back to back Motel 6's. They didn't have much for truck parking so I parked across the street in one of our customers store lots. 11/19/04 - I told the other driver I needed at least five hours of sleep and that is what I got ... to the minute ... without an alarm clock ... and rolling again. We were less than three hours from other drivers lot when I shut down last night ... so IF you don't count the hours getting to our customer in the rental car yesterday, he was still legal to drop last night and now can show the whole day today as off duty. By the time I get to his drop he has walked to the McD's at Wal-Mart ... once there I look at my paperwork and see the hours are M-F and I have a truck going to this same location Saturday ... Hey ... Maybe ... if they are closed this weekend we can get out of the second run like this and head out to CA early ... no such luck ... they are open seven days, just not 24 hours so we can still make the delivery but if me miss the hours ... more delays. We were given two trucks for Lewisburg, WV and two for Morehead, KY ... but because there are not any rental cars close to Lewisburg ... we are running one of each on each trip. Adds under 100 miles / about two hours to each trip but shuttling to get the rental cars the other way could have cost us about six hours so we are coming out 'ahead.' At least my truck is getting fairly good milage ... I'm guessing about 8 mph in the 'Green rolling hills of WV.' One more fuel stop to get the gauge off of 'E' ... and the last two hours to my drop ... Huntington Airport ... would be nice if they had signs .... I finally stopped and looked at the map ... next exit. And yes, there was a sign but by now we were miles past town. Like these WV airports ... just flatten the top of a hill and call it an airport. Once we had the car I left the other driver behind and headed to the drop ... Scale #2 ... I notice the guy sit up when he saw me coming and sure enough ... red light ... bring in all paperwork ... no problem .... all is / looks legal. "Do you work for (customer) or are you just transporting?" 'Just transporting' "Get on out of here then." ('Thanks') Also in the lot was a truck loaded but without a back door ... wonder if maybe he wanted me to help the guy out ... transfer the freight to my truck and get him off the scale ... I must have really been pushing it 'cuz the driver in the rental car never did catch up before I got to the drop ... another worthless map, but I could see the customer as I came down the ramp, or I'd have been looking about five miles away ... Try calling dispatch to see if we can bail on the next run ... Nope, no drivers to cover ... we took them, they are ours ... not even anyone to cover the garvey run to CA ... so either I'm gone over Thanksgiving or spend $$$ to get home in the middle of an otherwise good trip. As long as we were stopped we eat ... second good meal in four days ... and took time to FAX the boss some paperwork, dispatch keeps calling to remind us ... Back on the road I do all the driving back to the lot ... no problem, it's daylight most of the hours. Speed limit on I-79 is 70 ... so I drive 'plus 5' ... and at one point a cop sails past me doing 80+ ... with three cars tail-gating him ... huh?? There is a $29 Motel 6 about an hour from our lot so we stop for the night ... that and its about 10 PM ... first night before midnight ... traffic was a little slow in spots today with some rain and traffic. Tonight the other driver gets in the Motel office first and requests a smoking room ... single ... so we got separate rooms. 11/20/04 - Shutting down at 10 I thought we'd be rolling at six or earlier ... "How about 8 AM?" ... and when I called him shortly before that I woke him ... But we were rolling by 8 ... It's Saturday AM and the lot is crowded ... a couple of our drivers and a couple of others all with problems. Trucks don't start ... and keys don't fit. We check our trucks again three of four started (we had left a list at the office of which ones we needed). We had been told there was no one at the customer on weekends so we had signed for all our trucks on Thursday and expected to be on our own today, luckily we talked to our other drivers before going to buy jumper cables ... they had been told by the guy in the guard shack that someone could come out if their trucks didn't start ... great news. We get the service guy out to jump my truck, claims he couldn't find it yesterday which is why it wouldn't start. After much conversation about keys not matching the truck for one of the other drivers, I finally went and looked at the VIN numbers ... that explained the keys, no sense in bothering the guard shack, nothing they can do about this one. I had kept asking them how they knew they had the right truck if they couldn't open the door ... we were able to see enough of the VIN through the front window to know it was wrong. Dispatch didn't have an answer for this problem so it looks like those two will be sharing a ride home 1,000 miles. We still have the rental car so we've been hanging around to see what dispatch decides ... I offer dispatch to bail on any or all runs, but dispatch doesn't get back to us before we have to roll. Would have been nice to know where our other drivers are, we have a rental car and these guys just took a cab from Philly ... 70 miles ... ouch ... somehow they found someone to drive them for $50, not a bad deal. Another shuttle to the airport to drop the rental car, this time it was my truck ... again I add the 2 gallons before I leave the lot, just to make sure. Page 5 - The next leg .... |