From the Mountains to the Mighty Columbia

August 25, 2012 – Waking at a semi-reasonable hour in Ogden I did my PTI and set off on the last leg of this itinerary. Okay, technically it was the second to last leg since we wouldn’t be making the delivery until tomorrow, but it was the last significant piece of driving on this trip. It was my birthday, kind of a milestone birthday if I was financially secure enough to retire, and I received an early text from my younger daughter encouraging me to drive well and be safe.

Well that was a curse. I almost immediately stalled out the truck when, with parking brake engaged, I let the clutch out while I was still in gear. Scared the crap out of myself and my trainer who was outside the truck. I apologized profusely.

Almost immediately I was challenged with downshiftable ascents and Jake Brakeable descents. I thought I was hitting them pretty good but had a number of instances where I just didn’t nail them. I had the most trouble with upshifting on a downslope. I could get the right gear or rpm for the speed.

We worked our way slowly up in altitude before we hit the “summit” at Cabbage (legitimate name: Emigrant) Hill where we stopped to perform a brake inspection. This was going to be a descent that I would get credit for and it would be without the Jake Brake. I pulled out after the inspection and my palms were sweaty. I was still a couple of miles from the downslope and I wanted to slow down. Dudley instructed me to keep my speed up, so I did. At the crest of the hill I downshifted to fifth gear and then fourth. Before you know it I was barreling along at speeds ranging from 11 to 14 miles an hour.

I steeled my resolve to make it down the hill alive. Actually, I wasn’t scared as much as I was embarrassed. I was being passed by every car, pickup and semi on the road along with old women, the short bus from the county school district, broken down RVs, Asians (!), and I think I even saw a Rascal go flying by me with the driver / rider flipping me off for good measure.

After we got on quasi-flat ground again, Dudley got a call from corporate saying they had received a call saying a red Stevens truck was stopped on the highway. He thought it was probably a smart ass driver from another trucking company. He assured safety that we were not stopped but weren’t going very fast.

So, one hill down, two more to go.

A mile or so from the base of the hill I pulled into a sparkling new AmBest truck stop on the eastern side of Pendleton, Oregon, to refuel and change drivers. I’d put in my almost 10 hours and had logged 515 exciting miles.

Two more faux pas (goofs) at the stop. I did another let out the clutch with the parking brake on and the truck in gear, but didn’t kill it. Then, instructed to put only  76 gallons of diesel in the tank(s), I was distracted by washing the windshield and looking at the wrong numbers on the pump and filled it with about 120 gallons.

What a birthday. I offered to make arrangements for a bus ticket to take me home, but in a rare show of sensitivity, Dudley said, “Hey, it’s only been a week. You’ll be okay.”

I was glad to have Dudley take over so I could just kick back and watch the scenery over the last few hours of our trip.

Pendleton wasn’t much to see, at least from the freeway, but I noted that it was the home of Pendleton Woolen Mills. I used to own a Pendleton shirt. I must’ve gotten it on sale because I noted on their website that they sell for $110!

Another hour down the road and we came parallel to the southern bank of a very wide river. It was at least a mile across and there were steep, barren cliffs on the other side. The Maps program on  my Droid told me it was the Columbia river and that was the state of Washington on the other side. The tops of those bluffs were line with hundreds, probably thousands of windmills with their props turning slowly in the wind. Even though I am not a fan (no pun intended) of windmills, I have to say that I was captivated by the view. They look so stately and elegant converting the breeze into kilowats. It was almost enough to make me forget the vast amounts of money, mostly government money, that most wind farms waste.

The closer we got to Portland, the darker it got, but I could still sense the Columbia guiding us to our destination. We were less than 50 feet above the surface of the river and the huge void to my right / north told me it was still there.

A random shot that shows what I look like before I lay me down to sleep. You can only imagine what I look like, bare & hairy chested in the morning.

At about 10:30 we pulled into the TA truck stop in Troutdale, Oregon. Dudley had made plans to have his former student and current friend, Aaron, meet him, and they arrived shortly after we did. After some chitchat at the truck, we went into the restaurant for a quick snack. I was amazed at the number of tattooed freaky people, who surprisingly didn’t look like truckers, who were hanging out at the place. This was one of those truck stops that had EVERYTHING, including a night club, barber, doctor, hotel, barber, etcetera, etcetera.

As we were sitting down to eat, Aaron’s girlfriend said she was in the ladies room and a couple of skanky women were sitting up on the row of sinks talking about shooting heroin. She said she was going to go back and see how it turned out. Alas, they were gone.

After I finished my clam chowder (very good) I excused myself and let the remaining three get caught up with each other. I went back to the truck and was quickly asleep. Our delivery wasn’t until 11 o’clock the next morning and since I was making the drop, I wanted to be well-rested.

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From the Plains into the Mountains

‘Twas a beautiful morning as we pulled out of York and onto I-80. The farmland stretched out mostly flat for miles and miles. Lotsa irrigation. Mostly corn but after all, what is Nebraska? The landscape changed as we drove west and the hills started rolling. The soil obviously changed too since the crops gave way to range land which gave way to pretty much nothing. The buttes rose up in the extreme western part of the state and the landscape stayed that way into eastern Wyoming.

The hills became more severe as well. I was downshifting to make it up the hills and using the Jake Brake and fan to make the first five mile 4 percent descent down the other side. (The Jake brake is a system that uses the engine to help brake the rig and the fan is a separate and distinct braking system that I don’t have a link for.)

The plateaus were gorgeous. We saw a lot of antelope but no deer so I guess they were not able to play. I would think that these innocent creatures could mess up the front of a truck so I hope they stayed on the range and avoided the pavement.

I would be pulling into Rawlins, Wyoming, an hour or so before dusk. But the town just to the east of Rawlins was Sinclair, home of the Sinclair refinery. We noticed that not only was there gases being flared from the designated stack off to the side of the complex, but a big ass fire burning right in the middle of the refinery. It was far enough off the freeway that I couldn’t see exactly what was burning, but Dudley said he saw streams of something, perhaps chemicals, being directed onto the fire. This looked like an emergency situation to me. Being in a truck and not a car, we did not pull over to investigate, but a goodly number of other vehicles were pulling over. I guess they wanted to see the explosion.

Rawlins was only a few minutes further down the road and although we couldn’t see the refinery from the truck stop because of a big hill, we could see the dark smoke still billowing into the sky.

Rawlins was obviously a cowboy town. The freeway into town was lined with dozens of small livestock pens occupied mostly by horses.

I parked at the TA and we took a quick “rest.” I did my post trip and Dudley got behind the wheel. Before it got dark we saw more pretty scenery. Passing through the town of Hershey, Wyoming, we saw a large silhouette of a coyote at the top of a hill. Of course its nose was pointed up, howling.

Dudley drove on into the night and into Utah. I saw some serious mountainage but could only see a few hundred feet off the freeway. I’m sure it was gorgeous, just gorgeous. We picked up I-84 north of Salt Lake City and followed it to Ogden where we spent the night.

We did not shower.

Broke Another Truck

In doing my post trip inspection at Huck’s in Kuttawa I saw a problem under the trailer. The air bag was not sitting prettily on top of the seat. It was canted at about a 40 degree angle. Dudley agreed, it didn’t look right. He called it in and the safety guy Stevens found somebody who knew about such things and how to fix it. We would have to drive to St. Louis to get it fixed.

After our nice burger dinner we slept. I heard retching as I woke up. Or maybe the retching woke me up, hard to tell. It was Dudley and he said the wonderful hamburger just wasn’t sitting right. He thought he had eaten too much, too late. The problem, sad to say, would stay with him for most of the day. We compared notes on barfing. He was a fan and said that a good vomit would usually clear his stomach problems right up. I was anti-barfing and would keep things down and let the body deal with it in a less repulsive way.

Whatever. I was first up to drive and I got us to St. Louis, where our suspension expert’s shop was located. But a funny thing happened about 20 or 25 miles short of our destination. The airbag sprung a leak. I personally think this was due to our letting the air out of the trailer air brake system. I think, personally, that when the airbag was relieved of its air, the rubber was pinched between two pieces of metal and the rubber was sufficiently weakened so it was only a matter of time before it failed.

I could tell something was seriously wronger when every bump I hit caused us to bounce like we were riding a kid’s bouncy ball toy. The closer we got to St. Louis, the worse it got. Now I’m not sure that St. Louis roads are that old and bad, they certainly looked old and bad, but my ride past the city center and our trip out to St. Charles, was something I do not care to repeat. It felt like in some cases, wheels were leaving pavement. My butt cheeks clenched tighter than usual. I kept trying to slow down but Dudley was adamant about keeping our speed up so we would attract less attention. I think we were lucky I didn’t bounce the truck off the road, or worse, into a troopermobile.

When we finally got to the trailer dealer just west of the Missouri river in St. Charles and got out of the truck, it was singing a whining tune out of a hole in the air bag. You know how you can make music by stretching the opening on a balloon as the air escapes? That’s what this was, only on a very heavy duty, adult level. The air compressor must have been working overtime because we never lost brake pressure.

An interesting aside: the journey to the trailer dealership took me right past a few of the places where I spent time in early June with a dead end job selling roof repairs for a company that had a deal with Home Depot. It was a little like a bad LSD flashback. Not that I’ve ever done LSD or suffered a flashback. But I’ve read about it and seen them on TV.

After we turned the truck off, the whine eventually and literally ran out of gas. It would be a two hour-plus repair. It took awhile for the service writer to write the ticket and make sure it would be paid for. The service techs were at lunch, and it just takes time to drag the trailer into a stall and make the repair. We were stuck in an industrial park with no way to go and get food. And I was hungry! Dudley did a little shopping in their parts department and I stole a banana from a fruit basket in the employee break room grabbed the bag of cashews out of our truck. We retired to the trucker’s lounge. They had free cokes and water and satellite television. Dudley tuned into an old crime movie on one of the premium stations and I zonked out for the better part of an hour. When the trailer was fixed, I got another opportunity to couple it up. Success!

Until we were driving off the property at which time a loud scrape halted our progress. I had forgotten to raise the landing gear!!! With my front bumper in the middle of the street, I slunk down as low as I could in the driver’s seat while Dudley jumped out and remedied the problem.

At least the truck was fixed. I don’t think it was anything I had done to break it in the first place. It is entirely possible that the trailer was broke when we picked it up at Florida Natural in Lake Wales. We shall never know for sure. It was fixed now and, boy, did the rig drive better. I drove a good long way, to just short of Kansas City where Dudley took over. He got us to York, Nebraska, where we spent the night. It was my worst eating day of the entire week, but once again, I slept like the dead.

At daybreak in York, NE, I was lucky enough to catch a hot air balloon rising in the early morning mist. Actually this was the town’s water tower and to be perfectly honest there was no mist. Had you going, didn’t I?

By the by, this was my second day without a shower. And I did perspire a bit with the whole uncoupling and coupling of the trailer in St. Louis. It was hot.

Deliveries and a Repower in Florida

We left Hammond in the wee hours of the morning and traversed the southernmost tips of the Gulf states on Interstate 10. We found sunrise in the Florida panhandle with Dudley at the wheel.

You see, during training I am not allowed to drive during the danger hours of 3:00 to 7:00 a.m. Dudley got us to Wildwood, Florida where it was my turn to drive. A few miles into my part of the journey we turned onto “Florida’s Main Street” (the Florida Turnpike) and I took us to a Love’s truck stop in Fort Pierce. It was only mid-afternoon but Dudley was running out of hours and it would only be a two and a half hour drive to our first delivery just north of Miami.

As we did our post trip inspection the skies were threatening. We saw and heard the occasional flash of lightening and rumble of thunder. And then it seemed to clear up. Dudley decided he was going to walk to Wal-Mart which was at least a mile away, back on the other side of the freeway and north a piece. He needed a couple of shirts and some other provisions. I thought about walking along until less than a block down the street I eyeballed how far it was to the freeway. I thought the little Mexican-looking chicken place at that corner would be a great place to have supper so I bid Dudley a good walk and ducked in for some chicken. It was Central American (I think) chicken and it was spiced quite nicely. The unique thing about the restaurant was that instead of a condiment bar, it had an onion bar. Diced onions were offered in four different styles, I chose the creamed onions with little chunks of tomato. Over the fried plantains, it was excellent.

It rained while I was eating. I picked a lull in the action and hustled back to the truck stop. The skies opened up. I hunkered down in the Arby’s and watched the light show to the southwest. Dudley better be inside someplace. Alas, when he finally got back to the truck he was wet, which probably washed away the sweat, because it was still 90-plus degrees hot and very humid.  But he had his shirts and provisions.

Our delivery was scheduled for 11:00 a.m. so it only made sense that we leave at around 5 o’clock(!). We hit minimal rush hour traffic and got to the Winn-Dixie distribution facility waaaay early. We first parked along the street outside the facility along with a dozen other semis and started walking towards the front gate. After a quarter of a mile on foot we saw that we weren’t even a quarter of the way there so we went back, got the truck and drove it closer to the gate where it was evident that we could just pull into the line of semis and wait our turn to enter the yard.

We walked up to the gate, showed them our papers and were instructed to go back to the truck, tune our CB to channel 12 and wait for instructions. Perhaps 20 minutes later we got the call and made out way to the designated gate. Dudley executed a neat pre-park, we got out to open the trailer doors, and he backed the rest of the way into the warm embrace of the hermetically sealed door. We chocked the trailer wheels and walked into the warehouse offices. Given that we were carrying a load of beef that had been maintained at 27 degrees, obviously, the warehouse was freezing too. I had put on long pants this morning but was otherwise wearing a short sleeved golf shirt and no cap.

(If I haven’t mentioned it earlier, allow me to mention it here: I found it ironic that we were transporting processed beef from California to Florida. I could only guess at how many thousands of beef cows this truck passed on its way here. My guess would be many, many thousands. AND, if I remembered my college geography classes correctly, on the list of beef producing states Florida ranked THIRD. Why were we moving meat thousands of miles to a state that produced copious quantities of meat? Sounds like job security to me.)

Dudley conversed with the receiving clerk through a hole in the window (the clerk’s office was heated), learned the bill for the unload (some warehouses charge shippers to unload their trucks), and back we went to the cab where Dudley prepared the T-check for the unload. Two and a half hours later we were heading out the gate. One reason it took so long to unload was that this Winn-Dixie warehouse only took part of the shipment. The rest would be delivered to Orlando tomorrow. Sometimes, the shipper does not separate the shipments neatly and the receiver has to take what they need from multiple pallets and repackage what’s left for the next stop. It’s possible that’s what happened this time, but there is no way to know for sure since we were in the truck and they were in the trailer.

Speaking of which, it’s a bit weird to be sitting (or laying) in the cab of a truck while the hea995vy lifting is being done in the trailer. There is a lot of bucking and rolling and loud bangs. Nevertheless, when the lumpers (truck unloaders) were done, a clerk came out to the truck, told us we were done, and gave us the paperwork that would get us back out the gate.

During this time, we got a message that we were going to swap loads with another driver. He would take the rest of our meat to Orlando (where he would take a couple of days off) and we would take his produce and nuts to a McDonalds food distributor in Pompano Beach for a 4:30 delivery(!!!). Of course Dudley would get there two and a half hours early. Of course, the receiving clerks would tell us that 4:30 means 4 stinkin’ 30. And of course we couldn’t just park there. He directed us to a farmers market a couple of miles away where we could park it for a spell. We found the farmers market, but it was on the left side of the road and there was no turn lane across the median boulevard. So we had to take a five mile scenic tour to get us back onto the right side of the road so we could bop into the farmers market and hang out for awhile.

It was a strange place, at least at this time of morning. We got to the back end of the property and there were perhaps 50 big rigs parked neatly in two rows, all sleeping. It was like a trucker’s tent city. We found us a parking spot, backed in, and crashed for the better part of an hour. When we got back to the warehouse, we were directed to the appropriate door and the unloading took less than  minutes. We had ONE PALLET. It was barely 5:00 a.m. and we were on our way north on I-95.

The good news in this repower was that we picked up a new plan for our next run. We would be picking up a load of orange juice in Lake Wales, Florida, and delivering it to Portland, Oregon. Dudley had requested a run to Portland and by gawd we had it. We stopped in a Flying J on the north side of Fort Pierce to wash out the trailer. which was a requirement. Dudley decided to wash the tractor as well. We also grabbed a quick breakfast at the Denny’s inside the truck stop. And I took it from there.

My driving skills were improving but I was still working at the shifting. I was starting to get a real feel for floating the gears, but anytime  I had to shift outside of a nice straight shot from a dead stop, I was having a time finding the right gear to be in and the right rpms to get me into that gear.

We arrived at the OJ yard in Lake Wales and I handled the entry through the gate, the parking of the empty (and now clean) trailer and went to the shipping clerk’s office to get the paperwork for our load.  A nice (ancient) slender lady helped me through the process and then it was time for my first coupling. It went pretty smoothly but we had to move the tandems under the trailer up a few holes. That done (it wasn’t as easy as I am writing, but this post is getting pretty long) we left the yard and st started looking for a scale so we knew what we had. Dudley’s map had a scale back at the last major intersection. Heading back south, I got into the turn lane that would take us to the service station with the scale. As we sat at the red light, it was apparent that there was no scale. So I effected a car-like maneuver and managed to go straight through the light and under the highway we had just come in on. There was no scale at that service station either.

So we were headed out of town and would have to find a place to turn around. It was a nice four lane divided highway but Stevens has the dreaded NO U TURN rule. A mile or so down the road we found a half occupied set of commercial buildings so I turned in and found some streets and parking lots that allowed us to make the turnaround. Getting back on the highway headed north was somewhat of a challenge, but I got us headed in the right direction. About 15 miles up the road we found a truck stop with a scale and learned that we weighed, with only a quarter tank of fuel, 79,280 pounds. We were 720 pounds away from being illegal. We would have to watch how much fuel we put in the truck.

I drove for the next bunch of hours. The only steering wheel clenching moments I had were:

1. 1. taking the cloverleaf from I-75 onto I-285 westbound on the south side of Atlanta,
2. 2. navigating the truck stop five miles from I-75 in Marietta on the north side of Atlanta, and
3. 3. getting through some mild rush hour traffic in Nashville.

We got into the south side of Kentucky and stopped for the night at Huck’s truck stop in Kuttawa. We had a nice dinner at a steak place across the street (dutch treat – my burger and steamed broccoli were EXCELLENT) and I slept like the dead.

Dudley’s hamburger, which he proclaimed to be excellent, did not agree with him however. More on that in my next post.

In My Sixth State

And I don’t mean state of mind. (I’m probably only in my fourth state of mind.) We just rolled into Florida after starting in El Paso (the company flew me there to hook ip with my OTR trainer, Dudley), sliding through a sliver of New Mexico, traversing Louisiana and the heels of Mississippi and Alabama.

We spent night one at a teensy truck stop in Segovia, Texas,  and night two in Hammond, Louisiana,  where I had spent a year processing BP Oil Spill claims. I finally got to drive the last couple of hundred miles and toured one totally stuffed extra large truck stop before finding some openings at a small truck stop down the road at the next exit.

Here’s a shot of the Hammond truck stop at 3:00 a.m.

Slept like s#!+ the first night and the not so bad last night. Had my first truck stop shower in Houston (most welcome) and was able to connect with my wife for half an hour (only able to talk). She brought my official Class A CAL and some other goodies, chips. Cheetos, Tab, and some DVDs.

We expect to end up south of Orlando this evening and will head into Miami tomorrow with our load of prime beef.

Blogging is tough on the my DROID. Will do my best to supplement things if I can ever get network access for my laptop.

Orientation Day – 1 3/4

If you’d have told me two years ago that I’d be getting up at 4:30 to go take a DOT physical for truck driving school  …

Orientation – Day One

After a night in America’ s Worst Value Inn, about fifty of us (only one woman in the group) made our way to the Stevens death star.

We were told to be ready for the shuttle no later than 7:00. That only meant a 35 minute wait at the corporate offices before class cranked up.

We have a high energy chick for our leader and she is moving us through the process. Gawd Stevens has a lot of hard and fast rules. Plus we had to do all the medical forms all over again. Tomorrow we all get to take our physicals again. And to do that we all get to go in an hour earlier. They told us we would be wise to catch the first shuttle that will be departing at 5:15. Not sure what difference it makes. We’re going to have to wait for the last guy to finish his physical before we can move on anyway.

As with the last class in Houston I see remarkable diversity in the class. Visitors from New York to Washington (state). Kids as young as 22 and me along with a couple other guys who could be even older. A couple certainly looked older.

After a couple of hours they took us out to “The Hill” where we got a quick “mirrors” orientation followed by a professional walkaround. Back in the air conditioning we got lunch of mediocre pizza before heading back out to The Hill were half of us went out on the road to be evaluated and the other half went back to The Hill where we participated in Skill tasks. I got to drive the mini road course around the exercise area and do the Hunts Point exercise which is a serpentine alley park. In the days ahead I will do the other skills and head out on the road. Field trainers are participating in this part of the curriculum. It was suggested that if we click with one of the guys we ask if they’d be interested in training you. Have found “The Right One” quite yet, although they all seem like decent guys.

It was super hot out there on the pavement today. Drank lots of water. By the time they shuttled us back to the America’s Worst, we were all ready for a cold adult beverage. Unfortunately, those are now off the menu until further notice. That doesn’t mean that some of the students won’t imbibe, but even a wee nip would be foolish since we will be peeing in a cup in the morning.

Looks like we’ll be humping until about 10 p.m. for the next couple of nights. Yeow! Not sure you’ll see many words here for the next couple of days.

Graduation Day

After a total of 20 days in the classroom, peanut gallery and the driver’s seat, we began our last day in the classroom watching videos and taking the final four tests required by Stevens in order to graduate and qualify for the trip to Dallas.

The Peanut Gallery, from whence we watched drivers blossom – or not.

Will, the director of the training program prepared us for the multiple choice exams and it would appear that all 11 remaining trainees qualified – eight from our original class that began three weeks ago and three trainees who failed their road test last week and had to give it another go this week.The vids were on driving in the mountains, in the rain, and at night. The word to live by was PREPARE. Not much that was new, but the mountain video gave me a bit of advanced white knuckle syndrome. Me and heights don’t get along.

Here is the view from the driver’s seat, where  our butt-cheeks clenched and we blossomed – or not.

The toughest test included completing two days worth of driver’s log. ‘Twasn’t all that complicated but there were some elements of logging that we had not been exposed to yet. Boy there are a lot of DOT rules. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations “Pocketbook” alone runs over 550 pages. This lovely paperback was our graduation present I guess.

One of the cool things about this graduation day was how the two teams became one. While our truck’s team, that you already know, will always remain especially close, we will also stay in touch with the other team plus the three recovering failures from the week ahead of ours. They include:

• The Cartel, two best friends of Hispanic origin who say they came to the U.S. from Puerto Rico but look like drug traffickers.
• Ross, our resident FKIA. A very bright and talented guy. And he is continually working to prove it, while on methamphetamines. (I don’t think I’ve ever known a guy named Ross who wasn’t a FKIA.
• Road test retaker #1 – Spike, Bubba’s older brother who has finger tattoos.
• Road test retaker #2 – Einstein, a very authoritative ex-Navy dude.
• Road test retaker #3 – Tatts, a guy who obviously came out of central casting to take the role of professional truck driver. With or without the body art, this guy absolutely looks the part and if you put him in a truck stop TV room, you would pick  him first as the guy most likely to have 5 million miles under his belt.

After our graduation luncheon at which we were served Italian food, catered by Little Ceasar, we headed out to do Alley Parking. It only made sense to do the inside work in the morning while temperatures were in the 80s and save the outside work for early afternoon where temps reached the upper 90s. Trainer Will talked us through and then demonstrated the proper technique for backing an 18-wheeler into a slot a few feet wider than the rig we were driving. It was surprisingly easy, especially with Will walking and coaching alongside your tractor as you nudged your steering wheel left and right. Although we were all able to execute the move on our own with perhaps a little more jockeying than average. Perhaps Hibachi had a bit of a hard time. At any rate, we will all become proficient alley backers in short order I am sure.

The day ended with our Recruiter, Roto Recruiter, talking us through what would be coming next, in Dallas. He assured us we would be the best 11 drivers of the 80 to 100 who would be at the Stevens orientation class. He also suggested that since we would be watched, we should refrain from drinking demon rum and the concurrent public displays of idiocy. He said he would likely be assigned to great trainers. It was possible, however, that we would end up with not-so-great trainers. He suggested that we show up in our host’s rig with notebook in hand ready to record all the wisdom he had to dispense. And if he did anything that clearly violated Stevens policy, we should use that notebook to document it so as to cover our own asses.

With that, we stood for the class picture. If Roto Recruiter sends me a copy, I will not add it to this post because anonymity is still the byword here. Posts over the next few days will be considerably shorter I would guess. We have been promised 14 hour days and we will all be getting roaring drunk every night so I won’t have much time for blogging. (Kidding)

Finally – Road Test Day!

First the good news: I PASSED!

But what a slog it was. I got to the DPS office at 7:31 (I drove directly from home with a few lawn chairs) and found about half the team already there. The other trainer had one of his failures from the previous day on the parallel parking pad and was putting her through her paces. Back and forth at least half a dozen times. I didn’t pay close attention but I could hear the revving and bucking of the engine and could always see movement out of the corner of my eye. When I looked I could see the trainer walking outside of the truck and assumed he was talking her through the left, right, straighten, right, left steps to nestle the tractor and trailer neatly into the 120-foot space.

The other failure was sitting by the fence either on the phone or texting. “Don’t you want a try,” I asked. “Nope. I’m ready,” he replied.

The line at that DPS office for other business was already stretched the length of the building. We all waited around and after 30 minutes or so, the Limey  finally arrived after gassing up our rig at the Flying J. He had the non-test takers with him.

It had already been decided. The two failures from yesterday would be the first two test takers today. Bovine excrement! I expressed my absolute concern that I would get the opportunity to test TODAY! I was assured that would not be a problem. A bit past 8:30 an examiner came out and the other trainer hooked her up with the guy failure, who was, buy the way, a two time failure. If he failed this time he would have to do more than take the road test again. He would have to take the WHOLE course over again. And it sounded like he would have to pay extra for the privilege. He had a very hard time with the P-park. The examiner actually seemed to offer encouragement allowed him to restart two more times. She finally waved him forward and got into the cab. They disappeared onto the course. Half an hour later they returned and, alas, he had failed again.

The infraction that triggered the ejection was not his running of a red light which led to his ejection yesterday. It was his failure to proceed through a green light. He said he thought it was about to turn yellow. Mmmm hmmm. It sounded like he was pretty weak all the way around and this was what pushed the examiner past the desire to allow him onto the roads alone.  He was sorely disappointed to say the least. The other trainer could only shake his head.

A look at the pad where we had to execute the dreaded parallel park. LRSRL. Pull ahead. Done.

Next up was the lady failure from yesterday. She got in the truck and after the air brake test, executed an adequate straight line back up. The parallel park was not adequate. I’m not certain that she even got one cone in. To me, the secret of the P-park was getting the trailer angled so it was heading at the back curbside corner. The young lady was making adjustments far ahead of that orientation. She actually ended up with the rear wheels outside the cones altogether. It was as though she was making a straight line backup that included A LOT of turning. She was allowed THREE retries. It was not to be. The examiner drew her finger across her throat and it was over. The other instructor gathered the other failure and the other non-test takers from his team and headed back to the school yard. I am sure the young lady was crushed. She would miss the Sunday Stevens orientation and have to test again next Wednesday. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if somehow, her third retest was “facilitated.”

That left Ali, Kraut and me. In that order. I would be batting cleanup. Ali was sweating bullets. He had downed a few coffees and had snarfed down two sandwiches. Even though it was in the low 80s, he was sweating bullets.

Kraut was even more quiet than he was yesterday. He was Nervous (note the capital “N”).

I was quietly stressed. Still worried about the day coming to a close and me not getting tested, I kept talking and cracking wise. We were all glad to have chairs to sit on.

Ali finally got the summons at around 10:30. He fudged up the air brake test (we found out later), nailed the straight line backing and then, on the third adjustment, got his truck into a suitable position for the P-park. The examiner hopped in and off they went. He returned with an upturned thumb.

Road Test Day at the DMV. Ali paces, Marlboro in hand. This is a pre-flop sweat photo. He is performing the Palestinian mind meld on our 1999 Kenworth T2000. It must have worked. He passed handily.

As Ali walked into the DPS offices to get his temporary Class A Commercial Drivers License, I got a closer look at him. His shirt was soaked in a diagonal strip from left shoulder to right side of his waist, right where his safety belt crossed his torso. As he walked by, I could see his whole back was sweat soaked as well. But he passed.

It was close to 11:30. After 20 minutes the first examiner of the day came out and said they would be handling other testing and taking lunch but would be back to get Kraut and me at 1:15 or 2:00. Riiiiight.

We took our lunches and were ready to go by the earlier time. How naive we were. It was almost 2:00 before another examiner came out and took a supremely nervous Kraut through his paces.  When he returned from the road course, The Limey was summoned and there was some discussion about his test and left lane into right lane turning. The Limey took me aside and offered his words of encouragement. By this time it was after 3:00.

Another 20 minutes later, an examiner we hadn’t seen before came to the truck and gave me instructions for the air brake test, which I executed perfectly. I then executed a flawless straight line backup. She then told me to set up for the P-park I was confident. Until she told me that I was to execute the parallel park without my front wheels leaving the concrete. ALL the other trainees were told that the gravel just off the concrete was okay. The grass just beyond the gravel was not to be touched. My confidence melted somewhat. After an initial rearward move I felt my alignment not conducive to a good result. I pulled ahead and gave it another go and ended up within two feet of the curb. The examiner hopped in and gave me instructions for the road part of the test and off we went. Whereas the other trainer told me the examiners were very engaging and did everything the could to put the examinees at ease, my examiner was a cold fish and there would be no hint of warmth much less a single calming word. But hey, I’m an adult.

I drove everywhere she told me to drive. My upshifting was excellent. My downshifting was spotty. I missed a few signals. Because I was her first big rig exam of the day, she didn’t have anyone to compare me to. She didn’t ride along with the failures over the last two days. She didn’t know that I had spent almost 15 hours waiting for my shot behind the wheel. But although she docked me 21 points, including a deduct for the parallel park, I had PASSED (cue angel choir)!!!

I would have liked to ride back to the shed with the other members of my team but I was in my own car which I would be driving back to the dealership. My lease was up and we were turning the car back in and contracting the family fleet to a single vehicle. THAT extra expense will not be missed. And of course, since I’ll be on the road all the time, we won’t be needing a second car sitting in the garage.

Final thought: I would have liked a perfect score, at least something in the 90s, I was satisfied with a pass. Dallas, here I come.

Random Reflections in Week Three

I’ve stored up a few more thoughts over the past 10 days:

• I am still paying close attention to all vehicles with 18 or more wheels. I watch how they approach interesctions, take corners, and otherwise operate in traffic. I am much more tolerant in my opinions. But truckers driving slow in the left lane still piss me off. That is a pet peeve I will never get over.
• There are easily a million different trucking companies. I’ve been counting. There may be an infinite number of trucking companies. And they’re all hiring.
• While I admit I had a hard time picturing myself as a trucker and never saw myself as a blue collar kinda guy, I have always had respect for anyone who worked. I don’t care if they were driving a truck, digging ditches, flipping burgers or shoveling manure. Anyone who is willing to work is deserving of respect.
• The Limey was talking about truck stops today. Come truck stops can accommodate more than 800 trucks. HOLY FREAKIN’ COW! I grew up in a small town in southern Minnesota that had a population of 1,200. I’ll bet when you consider the non-truckers who might be dining or gassing up at the stop, the populations of the big truck stops and my home town are very nearly the same. On the subject …
• I don’t expect to make great numbers of friends at truck stops. I’ll be the guy wearing golf shirts and khakis. Everybody else will be wearing cutoffs or ratty jeans and oil-stained tee shirts. I’m not tying to be snobby or anything, but my khakis are comfortable and my BMW golf shirts are also comfortable and wash up beautifully. These polyester shirts are five years old and still look new. Sorry, but I’m going to wear them. Plus, other than the fact that I drive trucks too, I will have almost nothing in common with other truck drivers. The Limey says truckers don’t talk about trucking. They truck. Truckers tend to talk about non-trucking stuff.
• A lot of the Limey’s trainees over the past seven years have been weird. He had one that cried a lot. He missed his girlfriend back in Florida. The Limey kindly made arrangements for a load to the Orlando area so he could see his girlfriend. The Limey even got a chance to meet her. He reported that she weighed 500 pounds if she weighed an ounce. Out loud he said, “Are you $#!)ing me!” (There’s somebody for everybody.)
• I’ve already heard this numerous times: Trucking is not a job. Trucking is a lifestyle. A lot of new truckers simply do not appreciate this fact. These truckers will not last the five week training period. I believe it.
• The trainer we will all be assigned will have a monumental impact on how we do in the business. We trainees should get a chance to interview trainers and then pick the one that seems to fit the best. (Never happen.)

I’ll make a quick post with the results of my road test tomorrow. It will be good news.

I hope.