2 RV heading to Davis CA (1 delivered)

... spending the night at Galt CA

Today's breakfast was made to order, and we had to pay. The more you pay for a hotel room the more likely you will have to pay for breakfast and WiFi. We had omelettes. The cook was the person at the front desk.

As we are waiting for our breakfast we are watching the local news. Seems the fires we saw yesterday were started 'in or near' the homeless camps along the river. Other fires have been started there also. Fires are way up compared to last year, but they did not show an average. I did notice that where there were fields that weren't being used, instead of leaving the grass grow to keep the wind erosion down, the fields had been disked to keep the fire danger down.

I call dispatch about the warning icon on my RV right after 8 AM, 6 AM local. I can not deliver it that way.

I wait in our room until 10 AM / 8 AM local to start making calls the breakdown help line. At 1st they are clueless but finally something clicked and they found a repair shop that could work on the RV and gave me the persons name they had talked to.

Because I have been through this before, and dispatch just told me that a driver drove to five shops before getting fixed ... I called ahead. After about 15 minutes, the person I was supposed to talk to put someone else on the phone. They asked me about five questions and said 'Sorry, we can not work on it.'

By that time it was time to leave to get the rental car so my RV was on hold. I used my RV to drive to the airport and drop BB off. Then I returned to the hotel to park my RV for now. Last night when I got near the hotel there was a narrow turn lane with high curbs with a little yellow and black arrow sign at the start of the curb. I had driven very slowly past it. Today that sign is was gone.

This AM we see why the one part of the parking lot was coned off. Amazon training. So no parking. This is the 2nd hotel with a large lot where we have run into that.

When BB gets to the hotel with the rental car, we switch driver. She takes her RV and I take the rental car and follow her to the drop.

We are only about 10 miles from the drop.

1st stop - BB fuels at the Tesoro gas station a block from the drop.

2nd stop is the drop in Davis. Both the old time inspectors are there. One of them had been here the last few years. The other one had been here since day one of us coming here. But he had been gone the last year. Today he said he had been off work 11 months because of Covid. I didn't ask if it was as a precaution or if he was sick.

As soon as we had made contact with the inspectors I was back on the phone looking for a new shop to fix my RV. This time I had someone who knew all the right questions to ask me. This person I trusted. BUT ...

... the closest shop is 90 miles away. And we are in a major city. This time I am not going to drive to without checking. We are not to put that many extra miles on these RV's. So I called my dispatch. They were not going to OK this without checking with someone else. But I got the OK and we were on our way.

3rd stop - back at the hotel to check out and get my RV. This is when I found out that the Amazon trucks use part of the lot ... and the restaurant is not closed because of Covid. It is closed because of lack of help.

4th stop is the 49er truckstop for fuel. I am down to 40 miles range, enough to get to my drop. Not enough to get 90 miles to the shop.

As usual this area is a traffic jam. This time it starts near the truckstop. Trucks are backed up onto the two lane road. Finally a straight truck decides they do not need fuel this bad and that frees up an opening so others can jockey for position and I can get by. All the way to the gas pumps where things are a mess also.

Someone pulls up beside me and motions asking if I am in line. I am. It still took 10-15 minutes to get to a pump. All pumps are working but people either need to go inside to pre-pay or to get a receipt or both. I had to park after fueling (some park at the pump until they get their receipt) to get my receipt. Then I could not remember the dollar amount and that is the only way they can look it up. So they gave me a receipt and as I walked away I realized it wasn't mine. But I was not going back to wait in line again. We check our credit card statement, the receipt they gave me was $2.50 less than what I paid.

BB had looked up the shop I was going to be heading to and read the last step by step details to me. But when I got to my RV, I looked it up and it was different. So I remembered my route and headed out. Then after I was off the freeway and onto the side streets I realized I didn't have a building number. As I zoomed in, I realized that somehow the map had changed destinations on me. BB had been correct and I was on the wrong side of the freeway. Almost directly across from where I needed to be, but I had to go back to the exit to cross the freeway.

5th stop - A repair shop in Ceres. I had called here before heading down also but the person I had talked to is NA. The person I talked to said I needed to leave the RV. I asked if there was anyway not to leave the RV and they said no. Then halfway to the RV the story changed. Bottom line is I was in and out in less than an hour and it only took a few phone calls.

One of those calls was to the drop. It was too late, I can't make delivery today so we start looking for hotels. Then I realize that I am sitting here idling and loosing one mile range every minute. I head out.

When leaving, I was just going to go out the way I came in. When I got near the freeway I had to get in a turn lane, Then someone goes past me blowing their horn. In a few seconds I realized that was BB. I found out later that I had missed a street sign. I didn't want to be in the turn lane, I wanted to go straight. But the way the lights were timed that didn't work ... so well. When I got a green arrow I slowly moved until the oncoming traffic had made their left turns in front of me. Then I went straight ... on a red :(

Not a smart thing, but by the time I got to the fuel station I was down to a 12 mile range. And I drove 55 mph most of the way to the turckstop. I wasn't watching and got into the left of the two left turn lanes and a semi pulled up beside me in the other one. That cut me off from turning into the Loves. So I kept going to the Flying J but was still in the wrong lane but was able to make the turn.

6th stop - Flying J in Ripon. Crowded. I finally picked an outside pump and waiting at an angle next to it. The other person at that island was there before I got there and I think was still fueling when I left. The RV pumps had three each waiting when I got there. I am no longer worried about how much fuel I leave. I put in plenty of fuel to get back to the drop.

From here I call the west coast dispatcher. There are now more drivers ahead of me than last Friday. Things are looking up ??? I think so, because the shipper is still building, just not shipping. When they do start shipping again they will likely ship 2X as many as usual and he won't have enough drivers. I will call again tomorrow, if he still says no, we have a rental car for 4 PM.

7th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Galt. 45 miles from the fuel station and another half hour to the drop. We MAY keep the room tomorrow AM and come back for a while after we drop. We would have if we had stayed where we did last night but those rooms went up by another $50. This hotel is less than last night, plus we get our points.

... A couple of weeks ago this hotel chain removed 25,000 points from our account. I twice asked them about it. The 1st email reply had ended up in our junk folder ??? and we didn't see it. They said they had given them to us in error. So tonight I was typing a reply to their reply asking what the error was. We had stayed, we earned those points. But I wanted to double check. And what I found was they have now given us back those 25,000 points. Today. Without explanation. But later that night I get another email. Somehow everyone had gotten 25,000 points. So it was easier for them to reverse those points and start over than for them to removed those points from those that shouldn't have gotten them, one at a time.

Lots of fast food nearby so we walked to ToGo's. We have eaten at one of their locations before and it was good. May have been because we were starved. It was during a breakdown. This location also has a Dyers Ice Cream. So I had a cookies and cream malt. I would have also had a smoothie but they were out of mango. It was way more food than I needed without the smoothie.

But I did need to eat. I hadn't eaten or had anything to drink since about six this AM, it was now after four PM. But I do not get hungry or thirsty, usually. I'd likely starve to death if I was living alone. I just forget to eat.

Back at the hotel, we had forgotten our key when we walked out of the room. I will blame it on BB. She had checked in to the hotel without me and I hadn't seen the keys. So we had to have them make another one for us.

I had parked in the car parking instead of their truck parking. When I walked in the hotel I asked the desk clerk if I was OK. He first said he may call me if they got full, then decided he would likely get more trucks tonight than cars so wanted me to stay where I was. I had left myself one spot in front of me for BB to park so no one would block me in. An hour later, after eating, I went to move the car. Someone had parked in that spot blocking me so I would have to back out instead of drive out. 40-50 empty spots in the parking lot and someone has to park right next to me so I can't drive out. So I park behind the RV so I will still be able to back out in the AM.

Load board

US - 384

IA - 112

MN - 10

WI - 14

All that was put out for CA today were two WA trucks, not even going to the same location.

Didn't do much today but things were always in flux. Makes for a long day.

IF things go well tomorrow. We will be on the road early and get this RV dropped. Then have nothing to do for the next five hours. Then be in or near the Oakland airport when we call dispatch. If we are needed, we are an hour from the buses and can be ready before the paperwork is ready. If there is no work, we will grab our car, head past the bus company and drop our 1st rental in Livermore and hopefully get as far as Rocklin or maybe even Reno.

Heading home empty doesn't pay, but neither does staying in CA doing nothing.