Old New Friends

So there I was in Wahpeton, North Dakota on a Friday evening, pretty sure I had just wasted three days of driving, a long way from home. I sure wasn't going to stay in North Dakota, and I didn't see any good reason to go to Ham Lake, Minnesota, as I couldn't legally pick up the truck there without a Bill of Lading. And I sure wasn't gonna hang around there until Monday burning motel money, not after my unprofitable trip out.

So I decided to head back down to Omaha and spend the weekend hanging out with my uncle Pat, who's my godfather and one of the coolest guys alive. By the time I came to that decision, it was dark and I realized that I wasn't going to make it all the way back down to Omaha in timely fashion, so I decided I'd head back down I-35 to Brookings, South Dakota, which was my Mom's (and Pat's) hometown.

First I had to get my car clean, though. Pulling it behind a bobtail semi (don't you love trucker jargon? That means cab with no trailer...) for 1700 miles meant every bit of road grime imaginable now covered the car. This car is actually dark blue:



The guys who took delivery of the truck offered me their pressure washer, and I got an amazing amount of the accumulated grime off, and then I drove into town and found a gas station with a car wash and cleaned it again. It needed it! It felt good to have my car looking somewhat more reputable.

Then I headed back out towards the Interstate. By now it was dark, and getting foggy to boot. As I headed south, I slowly came to the realization that this wasn't just fog, it was freezing fog, and my car was icing up! As was the road!!! Running my defrosters full blast took care of the windshield, and I slowed down a bit when I felt the road begin to get a little slick. I'm pretty sure I was the only one who bothered to, though, as cowboys in pickup trucks kept blowing past me going OVER the 75 mph speed limit. Maybe that's what keeps the population down out there...

Upon reaching the South Dakota line, I pulled off the highway at the huge glitzy Dakota Magic Casino (owned by the Dakota Sioux nation), having been told by the guys in Wahpeton that they had cheap hotel rooms there. WRONG! There was nothing cheap there. So I drove on to Brookings, where I found a high school chorus competition took all the cheap motel rooms. Exhausted, I bit the bullet and stayed in a very nice $95 room at the Holiday Inn and Suites. Ouch! I vaguely recall walking across the street to Applebees and eating dinner...

Saturday morning I slept in (hey, if I was going to spend a lot of money, I was going to ENJOY it!), and about 11 am I drove into Brookings to find it a quite nice town. It's home to South Dakota State University, and reminded me a little of my former home of Fort Collins, Colorado, another college town. Downtown, the main drag was much as my Mom described it, and after cruising the main drag, I pulled in at Nick's Hamburger Shop, a place I've been hearing about from Mom for, oh, my entire life!

Nick's is a classic pre-WWII hamburger joint, much like the original White Castles or our own DC-area version Little Tavern, but with an interesting twist: the burgers are fried in a large, rectangular pan with four-inch raised sides with about a half-inch of grease in it. Almost but not quite deep-fried. Locals actually ask for their burgers with "more grease", and some even ask for the buns to be dipped in the grease! Much to my pleased relief, the burgers were quite tasty! I met Dick Fergen the owner (see his picture below), who remembered Mom immediately (she's been gone from Brookings for 57 years, but she was a real looker!) as well as my uncle Pat, who he went to high school with. He took over the place back in 2004, and has certainly poured a lot of love and work into the place. In the admittedly unlikely event that you ever find yourself in eastern South Dakota, I give Nick's a strong recommendation!



Before leaving Brookings, I let Pat know I was headed back down to Omaha, and I also sent a message via Facebook to Fran, who was the prettiest girl in my 7th grade class some 38 years earlier. We weren't actually close in junior high (puberty briefly robbed me of my ability to talk to girls, and like I said, she was REALLY pretty!), and midway through the 8th grade a desegregation redistricting sent me to a different school and I never saw her again. But her BFF Susie went to my school and I got to know Susie better a few years ago when we organized an ad-hoc 30 year reunion of our graduation class (the "Reunion Committee" had disintegrated), and when I joined Facebook last year and Susie became one of my FB friends, I saw Fran's name in her friends list and sent her a friend request, and much to my delight, we've become long-distance friends since then.

And Fran sent me back a reply to my "I'll be in Omaha" message with an invitation to dinner with her and her guy Blaine.

So, with that to look forward to, I pulled out of Brookings, right into a nasty little blizzard! Right away, I found myself in a traffic jam as we came upon a 5-car pileup just south of town (one vehicle upside down in the ditch!). After getting past that, I slowly made my way down through South Dakota, thankfully popping out of the storm at Sioux Falls, and I arrived in Omaha around 5pm. My GPS led me to Fran's house, and feeling a little bit like my junior high self, I knocked on the door.

...Which was opened by Blaine, as Fran was off buying beer for my visit! Blaine's a cool guy, quite friendly to a guy dropping out of his girlfriend's distant past (as I'm a short, chubby, bald guy, I can't imagine he felt very threatened!), a musician (well, a drummer, but...;-))who has a GOOD day job (he's a process engineer, involved in making those cool centrifugal testing rigs you see them spinning DNA on "CSI"), and he welcomed me into the house and introduced me to their two sweet dogs (a pair of bulldogs from a dog rescue operation they support). Fran arrived shortly, and we had a really great dinner (Fran cooked us steak, roasted potatoes and roasted asparagus) and a wonderful visit!

Fran was a delight, and in very short order we were like old, dear friends. As we caught up on each other's lives, we discovered an uncanny amount of similar experiences, and both agreed that if we hadn't been sent to different schools, we would have absolutely been great friends by the time we got to high school. It was wonderful sitting in the kitchen talking, and as the time passed, I started seeing flashes of her 12-year-old face!

Once again, the Internot made possible connections between people who otherwise would never be in contact.

After fond goodbyes and promises to visit again, I headed back to my uncle's place. I found a place to park about a block away (Pat and my aunt Sandy live in the VERY cool "Old Market" neighborhood of Omaha), and Pat met me at his door with a "how would you feel about having a beer with your uncle?" I replied that I couldn't imagine any possible response other than "GREAT!"

We walked over to The Upstream Brewing Company, a really excellent brewpub a few blocks away, and had a few beers and a pleasant conversation about what we were both up to. Pat recently retired a second time (he was president of a large architectural firm, then owned a very cool European bakery and cafe in the Old Market), and now he was spending his time helping artist Steve Joy with his work and with transporting and mounting his stuff at shows. Joy's studio was just around the corner, so Pat took me over and showed me some of his stuff. Fascinating!

After a good night's sleep, Sunday morning found me back behind the wheel. I had decided to go home, and figured I might as well go by Goshen first, to turn in my paperwork and see what kind of accommodation I would get on the fuel issue on my just-finished trip. So I drove across Iowa and Illinois and back to my uncle Tom's house in South Bend, where I again spent the night.

Monday morning early found me back at the terminal in Goshen, where much to my displeasure I found their "adjustment" sorely lacking. I averaged about .36/mile after paying for all that fuel, and their policy is apparently to make sure the drivers get a minimum of .40/mile, so I was paid the difference. Wow.

Even so, I then went to Dispatch, figuring I'd see if they had anything going east (might as well get paid to drive towards home, right?), and while I was standing there, I heard dispatcher Paul speaking into a phone saying "I have a load for Salisbury, Maryland". Well, that's about twenty five miles from my house, so I waited for him to get off the phone and asked him about it!

Alas, the load (that's what they call the trucks/buses/RVs we transport) wasn't in Goshen, it was in Laredo, Texas! Still, I was interested as I knew they paid a higher rate for those loads, and indeed, Paul indicated that it paid over .70/mile. Sold! I arranged to take it, and left immediately to drive down to Laredo (1500 miles away!).

The drive was uneventful. I headed back over towards Chicago, and then south on I-57 to I-55 to West Memphis, then west a little ways, stopping for the night in Forrest City, Arkansas. The next morning, I headed west on I-40 to Little Rock, then I-30 to Dallas, then south on I-35 to Austin, Texas (one of my favorite cities!). In Austin, I stayed with Elizabeth and Ben Hunter, who I met on an earier trip when I had Thanksgiving dinner with them and Ben's brother and sister-in-law Michael and Pam Hunter (Mike is yet another friend of mine from the Internot!).

Wednesday morning found me heading south towards the Rio Grande...

War and Peace, chapter 3

After dropping off the truck in Charleston, I called back in to dispatch, reported that truck delivered, and inquired about available loads. I was told that there might be something in Atlanta, but I'd have to drive back up there and only then find out... or if I was interested, they had a truck in Greensboro, North Carolina that needed to go to North Dakota.

Figuring that seemed like a lot of miles, and hence profitable (more on that much later), I took it, and drove up from Charleston to Greensboro, just in time to pick up the truck, another Freightliner semi, this one a day cab (meaning no sleeper, darn it!).



This time, I was EXTREMELY fortunate that I met Bob, a longtime veteran of the business, who helped me wire up the lights (he found me an adaptor so I could plug right into the truck, along with a whole bunch of extra wire, some extra chain to make my safety chains actually functional/legal, and a whole bunch of very good advice). Bob was a gem!

It was 5pm by the time I got out of there, so after first putting some fuel in the truck (it was practically bone dry), I hit the nearest Motel 6 and got a good night's sleep.

Next morning, I headed west on I-40 into the hilly then mountainous west North Carolina, and at Asheville was quite annoyed to find that I-40 was closed due to a landslide up in the mountains at the Tennessee state line! The recommended detour required about 60 extra miles, going up I-26 to I-81 and back down to I-40, but I noticed that US 70 (the old highway that I-40 supplanted) looked like a much shorter route, so I decided to go that way.

I suspect I don't have to tell you that was a mistake! Twisting, winding, steep, two-lane blacktop, heavy traffic, 35 mph most of the way (lots of fun with my non-advanced gearshifting skills!) . Oh, and two different bridges over the French Broad River (what a name!) that dated from the 1940s and were so narrow that I found myself praying for a break in oncoming traffic, because my truck was wider than my lane!

And, of course, at those speeds, I probably would've gotten back to I-40 faster taking the longer detour on the other Interstates! Sigh...

Eventually, I got back to I-40 and continued on my way, and as I drove on west, I noticed that my fuel gauge was dropping towards E much faster than anticipated. I pulled into a truck stop to get more fuel, and did some calculating and realized that I was getting around 5 mpg, instead of the 9+ that Bob told me to expect!

This worried me, but I thought perhaps the US-70 detour had caused me to use up more fuel. I drove on past Nashville, and back up into Kentucky towards Paducah, where I spent the night. The following morning, I fueled again (I should mention that on this trip, I never did FILL the tanks, preferring to put around $150 in at a time), and after sticking the tanks with a dipstick (which gives a more precise measure of fuel than the fuel gauge), did the math again. Damn. 5 mpg STILL! I thought perhaps going 70 mph was hurting the mileage, so I decided to slow down to under 65 mph.

So I got back out on the road, aimed for Omaha, Nebraska (where my uncle Pat lives). The route I was taking was slightly longer than the straight route through Chicago, but there was a lot of snow on the straight route. I drove on, passing St. Louis and Kansas City, and evening found me parking the truck in a truck stop in Council Bluffs, Iowa and going over to Omaha for a hot meal and a cold beer with my uncle.

The next morning, after going back to the truck, I sticked the tanks again and found there was no improvement in fuel economy, and I wouldn't have enough money left for fuel to drive the last 385 miles to Wahpeton, ND (my destination in the SE corner of ND). I called in to dispatch, and they told me they'd put some of MY money into my Comdata Card to cover the additional fuel (I should mention that they calculate my mileage and fuel money for the trip, and put half up front for the trip, reserving half to pay me after the trip was complete), and that after the trip was over, I was to get them all the fuel receipts and they'd "work with me" on the total money for the trip.

I didn't really like the sound of that, but figured I didn't really want to just park the truck and leave it, so I fueled up and drove on up to North Dakota. It being Friday, I called back in to dispatch to see if they had anything nearby for me to drive that weekend, and it turned out there was a truck in Ham Lake, Minnesota that was bound for Hastings, Nebraska that I could take on Saturday. I accepted the assignment, and was told to get a fax number so they could fax me the paperwork. I called Dave, the guy who was getting the truck bound for ND, and he said he'd be glad to take a fax for me, so I called back to dispatch with the fax number.

And couldn't get a human on the phone! After a few tries, I went ahead and left a voicemail message with the fax number. An hour or so later (after the home office was closed), I arrived in Wahpeton and delivered the truck and found no fax waiting for me. Sigh...

War and Peace, intermission

This will be a short break from our story to fill in a few details of interest.

1. My tow car is, as mentioned, a 1992 Volvo 240 wagon with an automatic transmission. I was planning on removing the driveshaft for towing (as said transmission will overheat if you tow the car any significant distance, resulting in ruination of said transmission, and possibly fire!). However, while I was at the Mennonite welding shop, a fellow driveaway driver came in for some work, and when I told him of my plan, he told me he just tows his car with the engine running! This seemed wasteful to me, but he assured me that he barely used ten gallons of gasoline on a 1000 mile run. So I tried it, and yep, worked a charm.

Of course, the first trip was kinda nerve-wracking, as I had no idea if the car was running or not, but thanks to the ever-dependable Volvo motor, I eventually quit worrying because every time I checked, it was running like a champ!

2. Apple iPhone is an amazing device that served me well and preserved my sanity! I have a 3G iPhone, and after that first trip to Richmond I got myself a suction cup window bracket for it, and using the Motion X GPS Drive app, it became a really excellent GPS unit for me. I have a car charger/FM transmitter for it too, so I had good music via either the iPod function or the Pandora or WunderRadio internet radio apps. I also was able to check in on Facebook and on the TDPRI (Telecaster Discussion Page, re-issue, a music-related bulletin board that I help moderate).

This meant I was in contact with folks pretty much whenever I wanted/needed some human contact. I'd take a break from driving, and spend a little time catching up with folks. I'm a much more gregarious guy than I realized, and being alone with no human contact really gets to me after a few hours!

I'd also note that, contrary to the Verizon ads on TV, I was able to get a usable signal for both phone and data almost everywhere I went.

Oh, another iPhone app that really came in useful: the Priceline Negotiator. Find a motel quick! Even better, it has Bill Shatner being outrageous on it...

War and Peace, chapter 2

Bright and early the following Monday morning (too early, really, I only got four hours of sleep!), with visions of glowing young women in my head, I got up and headed back to the drop off point and formally delivered the truck to the new owners. I then drove my car back to a nearby Panera Bread restaurant, where I had a bagel and cup of coffee, and called in to headquarters to report the truck delivered and to see if they had anything for me.

I was instructed to call our Georgia office, and on doing so was offered a truck in Atlanta to be delivered to Charleston, SC. As it was the only thing nearby, I took it, and drove over to the address supplied (which was about fifteen miles away). On arrival, I found I was going to be driving my first semi tractor, a big red Freightliner with a sleeper cab. Hooking up the lights was interesting, as this truck (and, as I learned, most if not all semis) had sealed tailights that wouldn't take my taplights.

So I spliced the wires to my wiring rig, and after a bit of effort was good to go. Here's the truck with my car behind:




This was the first truck I drove with a low/high range 10-speed manual transmission. Yikes! The way that works is that it's got a five-speed shifter (plus reverse, of course) and a low/high-range switch. If you've ever ridden a 10-speed bicycle, it's the same idea. These transmissions aren't synchronized like car manual transmissions, either, so shifting is more of a matter of matching up the engine speed to the transmission speed, or else you grind gears and miss shifts, etc. Embarrassing! I found accelerating to be no serious problem, but with this truck and the next several with the same transmission, I found downshifting EXTREMELY difficult!

Anyway, by the time I was ready to leave, it was obvious to me that I wasn't going to get to Charleston before 5pm (when the delivery location closed), so I called my contact and told him I wouldn't be in town before 8pm and suggested perhaps I should make the delivery in the morning when they reopened. He was very happy with that suggestion, as he lived a half-hour away and didn't really want to come back into work that evening. That suited me just fine as well, because it meant I could sleep in the sleeper cab instead of paying for a motel room!

So I got out on the Interstate, headed for South Carolina, and as the miles accumulated, I started realizing that four hours sleep wasn't working too well for me. Fortunately about that time I reached a rest area, so I pulled in and took a nice long refreshing nap!

The rest of the trip down to Charleston was uneventful, fortunately, and I got into the area around 9pm, found a truck stop and parked for the night, grabbed a burger and then went back and unrolled my sleeping bag in the sleeper cab. It was really quite nice and I slept really well all night, getting up early enough to drive the truck to the delivery point and dropping it off with no issues.