Orientation II – And We Thought It Couldn’t Get Any Worser

Up at 5:02 and down at the hotel  office by 5:25 I was ready to fight my way onto the shuttle. I arrived at The Yard before 6:00. While I was ready to get started at 7:00, things really didn’t start until 7:45. The instructor would be a guy we had seen five weeks earlier, and old bald dude with white hair, a white handlebar mustache, and a beard that grew where most men trimmed, just under his jawline. Weird.

It would only get weirder.

It turns out Cranston was a retired sergeant major in the Army and after 20-plus years in the service spent the next 20-plus years in the trucking industry. It was evident he was a by the book kinda guy and would be running a tight ship (pardon the navy reference for this old soldier). Well, kinda sorta. He ended up being big bark and some bite. I thought he was a passive agressive sort of guy. He also had no sense of humor unless he was the one cracking wise, which was rare. He thought he was cute. He looked like kind of a cross between Charles Manson and Gabby Hayes (maybe too obscure a reference for some – he was the wisened cranky guy from the Roy Rogers show). He even kinda whistles his S’s when he talks.

The class was predictably diverse. There were four of us from the same school in Houston. Honestly, we seemed to be a cut above the rest. Beyond us there were the preditable percentages of youth and older dudes, blacks and whites, and idiots and relatively intelligent-looking individuals. There were two women, one black and one white. Curiously, the white one was from South Africa and was, thus, the only real African-American in the class. Two of the black guys had a very hard time staying awake in class. While I would have thought that after a warning or two, sleeping in class would lead to expulsion, Cranston kept giving them dirty looks, but only waking them and not booting them out of class.

On Thursday a visitor showed up at the back of class. Turns out he was the owner’s son. One of the black guys, predictably, fell asleep. Cranston was beside himself and told the class, after or visitor left, that he would be called on the carpet before the end of the day. Jeez, I thought, if an old retired soldier who had spent the last 20 years in the company, much of it as a trainer, gets so twisted because he has a couple of nimrods in class, he’s got some other issues. I am absolutely certain that very few trainees get booted for anything other than flunking the physical or gross subordination. Nobody wants to run off paying (either directly or indirectly) paying “customers.”

But I digress. For the next four days we were at the yard until at least 8:30. On Thursday, trip planning day, we didn’t get released until almost 9:30. What idiot would allow himself to be abused like that for only fifty stinkin’ bucks a day?!? I looked in the mirror when I got back to my room and saw at least one idiot.

Looking back, even only a few days, the days are a blur. It was as though they put a funnel up to our heads and poured every aspect of safety, operations, fuel, administration, driving, trip inspections, insurance, shippers and receivers into our brains. At night for two out of the three first nights, we were over in our Orientation II practice area, backing up. I got pretty good if I do say so myself. My last 45 degree back in was accomplished with not a single pull up. The secret is to set up perfectly. Obviously, I am not a pro at this point, but I will be waaaay less trepidatious than I was for the last five weeks.

The biggest pain of  the week was shuttling from and to the hotel. It was always a struggle. There was absolutely no civility among the trucker scum. People who had been waiting the longest, better be in the right spot when the shuttle finally arrived or they would be waiting for the next shuttle – a minimum of 45 minutes later. Why this tranport company didn’t have better transportation, is a mystery.

Actually, it’s no longer a mystery. It is evident that the company is a driver mill and really doesn’t give a rip about the trainees themselves. The meals were poorly balanced. If you were a carboholic, you would’ve been on a carb high all the time. They served a lotta noodles, and pasta, and pizza and bread. Just the thing if you wanted to eat a lot and then take a nap after the sugar high turned into a post-sugar torpor.

The whole atmosphere within the building was impersonal at best and surly at worst. Very few people made eye contact in the halls. Most of the guest speakers seemed to have been trained to be tough or the students would somehow take advantage of them. I encountered a handful of cordial folks and a couple of the presenters were downright entertaining, but by and large, we seemed like a group that had to be put up with. “Go and talk to the slugs and then come back and get your ass to work,” seems to have been the standing instructions to the presenters.

Another downer for the week fell in the footwear department. I had a pair of tennis shoes (techincally crossfit) and a pair of brown leather, rubber-soled shoes that I had worn during the training exercises five weeks earlier. These shoes were fine then. The trainers were even the same. But suddenly I had to have steel-toes boots with “oil resistant” written on the soles. Well that was 50-some bucks I didn’t have right now. But I trooped over to Wal-Mart after returning to the hotel and charged a pair of Brahma working boots. They looked like ropers. They were confortable if I was just standing in them but the plastic around the top cuff tended to tear up my sensitive wittow legs. Walking and standing for long periods of time also messed up my back. But they were steel-toed and oil resistant dammit.  I returned them to Wal-Mart earlier today. If’ I can find a suitable replacement for reasonable money, I’ll buy them. Otherwise the company can come and get me.

On day two we were told to get into our trainee / trainee teams. While Kraut had indicated he wanted to partner up, and confirmed this on Monday evening, when we were moving seats, I noted that Kraut was sitting with Bubba’s brother and avoiding eye contact. Yep, plans had changed. A young guy, also from Houston, had asked me to partner up a day or so earlier and I said I thought I was set. I looked at him and made the partner up sign and so we partnered up.

He was a bright kid, but liked to talk. That’s alright I thought.  I wouldn’t have to worry about holding up my end of the conversation. He could handle all the talking for both of us. And he was confident. Also, in working with him on the backing exercises, he was actually pretty good. We were assigned a 2010 Kenworth T2000 Wednesday afternoon and drove it during practice that evening. It needed a little work and we were told it would be fixed and detailed before Friday afternoon.

When we found it Friday it had been largely repaired but had not been cleaned. We took it back to the detail shop where we learned that the company definition of detail was to put new mattresses in (a good thing, to be sure) and then take a leaf blower to the interior. Even though it wouldn’t even pass a gray glove test (dirt and grime everywhere), that was the extent of the detailing it would get. They really need to change the term from detailing to generaling.

But in the end it didn’t matter. My partner who had made preliminary arrangements to be home in Houston for a day and night of a family reunion in October, didn’t have final arrangements yet. By the time final arrangements were made, he would be assigned to a finishing trainer. And being without a partner, I would be as well.

That information came as a crushing blow. I was mentally prepared to be on my own. I was looking forward to being in the truck with another trainee would would not be judging my every move. I could hold the steering wheel like I wanted, not at the 10 and 2 positions at all times. So we parted ways with me more than a little miffed. Partner got assigned to a finishing trainer almost immediately. There were no others available evidently. Nor were there the next (Saturday) morning when I went in for roll call at 8 o’clock. Nor was there at noon-thirty when we were released for the weekend.

So here I sit at my daughter’s place again. This is a good thing. Any day away from America’s Worst is a good day. I’ve had normal food, washed my clothes, done a little more shopping, and watched a little Ryder Cup golf, even though I  haven’t actually, you know, played golf in a couple of years.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

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First Day Back on “The Yard”

I reported in Friday morning and my counselor was busy. I waited my turn and finally got my time in his cube. He was very upbeat and congratulated me on doing so well in my training. I’m pretty sure he says this to everybody no matter how they did out in the real world. He told me to report to the office next door down the hall so they could get a copy of my official CDL which I did. They got their copy and updated my medical documents and then invited me to step into their private office. Once in I was told to wait for someone to usher me back for a “random” drug screen.  TRAPPED!

After 20  minutes, somebody ushered me back to the medical wing. After a few more minutes we were taken to the random testing wing. I was  given the sample container with the requisite black target line Sharpeed in. I had no trouble getting to the line and proudly presented the cup to the nurse. She started laughing and said I was due for a breathalizer test, not a urine specimen. Very funny.

So here it is, 10:30 a.m. and I’m blowing into a breathalyzer. Even if I had been drinking the night before (which now that I think about it must be pretty common for trainees who have just come off the road and would not be driving for a few days) I probably wouldn’t have much alcohol left in my lungs. I passed and was told to take the rest of the weekend off and report in at 7 a.m. Monday.

I had my daughter in Fort Worth on alert for some piece of the weekend. She was more than happy to come and get me sooner rather than later. I caught a ride back to America’s Absolute Worst and waited for Killer to come and get me.

I lived an almost normal life for the next couple of days. Eating food in a house. Getting my clothes washed for me. (Thanks Killer.) Shopping for food and equipment I’d be needing for the coming weeks. And spending time with family. It was wonderful. They got me back to the hotel Sunday evening around 6 o’clock. I was sated, freshly laundered, rested, and ready to get to the next phase of training. I set the alarm for 5:30 and turned in.

Last OTR Day – Bittersweet, but Mostly Sweet

A little more than a week ago, mid-afternoon on September 20th, Dudley dropped me off  at the TA on I-20 in Dallas / Fort Worth. The five week ride with a trainer experience ended with a whimper, just like it started. I did no driving. I seemed to be in the way. And I was wrong about everything, even though I was right. But it was done.

Dudley was in one of his down moods and spent most of our waiting time sleeping.

Packing wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and I was fairly confident I had remembered everything. Wrong again. Dudlley assured me that I would forget something. This time he was right. I ended up forgetting my sunglasses and umbrellas.

I called my counselor, left a voicemail (as per usual), didn’t hear back (as per usual) and called again. I was given a number to call to arrange for a pickup by the company’s people transport contractor. I spoke to a woman who was not happy. (I’m pretty sure she’s never happy). She was coming from the airport and it was rush hour (insert unspoken “dammit” here). She instructed me to meet her at the Burger King in front of the facility and she’d pick me up (insert heavy sigh here). I told her since I had a hundred pounds of stuff I had already spoken to the lot guard (it was a pay lot), who said that she could drive in to the truck . The bitchy lady said that she had never been able to drive in before. I said fine, when she gets close to call me and I’d meet her just outside the gate.

Not long after she called to say she was close. I walked back to the gate and confirmed with the new gate chick that she would let the driver in. I met her and as we drove through the gate BL noted that the gate chick was the same one who had denied entry before. I said something about charm which went right over her head. As I loaded my stuff, BL humorlessly asked if I was moving households. Chortle.

I had heard that this little shuttle company was started by a couple of ex-company employees. They were lesbians. This one was obviously “the man.” I didn’t want to piss her off cause I’m pretty sure she’d be able to take me. Not because she was big but because she was wiry skinny and strong-looking.

The driver she picked up from the airport exhibited no personality and didn’t say a word on the way to the hotel. I didn’t either. I really felt okay until we got to America’s Worst where all the negative memories of that pathetic establishment came flooding back and I got a bit depressed. I  met up with Kraut and Bubba who were sitting on the curb in the parking lot. Kraut had all sorts of war stories about his three trainers. Bubba was on medical hold for an ear / hearing issue and had only completed two of the five weeks required to move on.

He looked down and it turned out that he was going to have to start the whole five weeks over again. He decided he was not interested in starting over and found a way back home to Houston. Word is he’s been picked up by another major trucking company, Swift, I think, and will be starting there in the next week or so.  Good for him. I was somewhat envious.

After comparing notes, they walked me to a barbecue joint nearby where I got a chopped sandwich and a side which I took back to the room and ate. I didn’t have to report in the next morning until 8:30, but I was tired. Relieved but tired. So I set the alarm for 7:00 and packed it in for the night.

FLASHBACK (Second Look): 8/23/12 – Kuttawa, KY

I started things out from Kuttawa and things went swimmingly until we got to about 20 miles from St. Louis. Then the trailer started bouncing around like a SuperBall (anybody remember those?) which of course caused the tractor to start bucking like a bronco in a hail storm. Dudley knew instantly that the airbags had failed and the trailer was following on with only its springs for suspension. It started out bad and got worse. Every little joint in the freeway became painful. And when we got to the old concrete interstates in St. Louis, forget it.

As bad as we were bouncing around, Dudley was concerned that we were holding traffic up. Let it be said that I was all about safety and, honestly, 45 miles an hour seemed like the upper limit we should be driving. I mean, that’s the minimum speed on a freeway, right? Dudley said, speed up! Keep it moving!

I was scared.

Turns out that since I spent a week in St. Louis on a career detour in June, I was familiar with the roads and that helped us limp into the trailer dealership in St. Charles. We pulled in just as the techs were heading out to lunch. They didn’t get to our trailer for better than an hour and it took a couple of hours to fix. But my mid afternoon we were pulling out of the dealership. Almost.

I was still driving and heard a sickening metallic screech as we were making the left turn out of the driveway. I had done a fine job of coupling up with the trailer and attaching the glad hands, but had overlooked the rather important step of cranking up the landing gear. That wasn’t embarrassing or anything. Dudley quickly handled that chore and off we went.

I drove until the eastern suburbs of Kansas City and Dudley took over. It was at this Petro truck stop that I discovered the trucker equivalent of the Happy Meal. I went to the Country Pride restaurant and assembled a nice meal from the evening buffet. Only five bucks a pound and all the soup you could carry for no extra cost. Fried chicken, green beans, turnip greens, roast beef, and even fried frog legs. It was wonderful. All this for $5.25. I ate until I was full and still had another meal left over.  Then it was nap time.

I woke up as we were crossing the Missouri / Nebraska border. It was dark. We stopped at a Sapp Brothers travel center for a pit stop. Dudley took us through Lincoln and we stopped late at another Petro in York, Nebraska, where we spent the night. Of course, there was another Country Pride buffet that I would be checking out for breakfast.

FLASHBACK POSTS

There were quite a number of days that just didn’t allow me the time or laptop connection to make posts. However I was able to log most of the action either on my laptop or longhand in my little black journal. All these Flashbacks are late, but I think I captured the highlights pretty well in my daily notes.

Sitting here at my daughter’s place in Fort Worth, I am playing some serious catch up. I have to find a better way to stay current. Maybe Twitter? Bear with me. All comments are welcome (unless they’re nasty).

FLASHBACK: 8/22/12 – Wildwood, FL

Quick post for the day. Dudley started things off with a flawless drive up to Tifton, Georgia, where I took over. The all interstate drive was a breeze until we got to the southern edge of Atlanta. The interchange that took me from I-75 to I=285 to bypass Atlanta to the west, was exciting in that it required a serious downshift to 25 miles an hour in some pretty serious traffic. Dudley was suggesting I was about to stall out about halfway through the cloverleaf, but I pulled through.

The whole trip to a Pilot was a butt cheek clenching adventure. Exiting the freeway at South Atlanta Road, everything was uphill to the truck entrance that was not protected by a stoplight.  The truck parking area was a pay lot and we picked up our ticket on the way in. We slowly drove toward the back of the lot and passed more than a dozen rigs that were lined up to leave. This would not be a ten minute stop.

We used the rest room and picked up some snacks. I made a mental note that they seemed to be serving some good home cooking. I picked up a quart of chocolate milk.

Getting out of the lot wasn’t quite as bad as I had anticipated and after about half an hour, we were back on I-285 and the ramp to I-75 north was likewise smoother than I thought it would be. We had a pretty serious climb up a serious hill north of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and then hummed along until we got to Nashville at rush hour. Since I was still relatively inexperienced, I white-knuckled my way through town but managed not to hit anybody. We continued north out of Nashville on I-24 and as night was falling, we arrived at the truck stop where we would spend the night, Huck’s in Kuttawa, Kentucky.

In doing the post trip, I discovered that one of the air bags on the trailer tandems was canted way over. That couldn’t be good. I summoned Dudley who agreed. Dudley had me let the air out of the trailer system and then blow the bags back up again thinking that might remedy the problem. It did not. (In fact I think it might have aggravated the problem since the deflated bag might have been more likely to get pinched with the weight of the trailer and its contents sitting on it.)

We got back in the cab and Dudley called the Breakdown folks back in Dallas. They conferenced in a trailer dealer representative in St. Louis. An appointment was made to stop by and get it looked at.

Late as it was, we walked across the street to a good looking restaurant, The Oasis Southwestern Grill. I had a spectacular hamburger done medium rare with a side of steamed broccoli. The veg was perfectly prepared and hardly anybody will medium rare a burger anymore. Dudley had the same but went with well done and stayed with a baked potato. Dutch treat. It was worth it. A real sit down meal in a place that served booze was a flashback to my normal life, even if I didn’t imbibe.

I slept like a baby. Evidently Dudley did not.

FLASHBACK: 8/21/12 – Fort Pierce, FL

Waking at a totally-unreasonable-in-anyone’s-book midnight thirty we got ready for our trip back to Miami with bleary eyes. Well, mine were bleary anyway. Dudley is some kind of nocturnal creature. He eats up 3:00 a.m. alarms (he chose the klaxon alert tone on his smart phone) and while he apparently doesn’t make a habit of scheduling deliveries around midnight, he embraces them with the affection a Hun raiding party shows a slumbering village.

We were on our way and believe me when I tell you we did NOT encounter any pre-rush hour traffic. A few bar closing freeway weavers, maybe, but nothing that slowed us up. We navigated our way to Pompano Beach and mazed our way to the warehouse. Dang it if a 3:30 delivery time doesn’t mean 3:30. At least that’s what the receiving clerk said. We had more than an hour and a half to kill. And we couldn’t drink. The receiving folk directed us to a farmers market a couple of miles away. We found it but since there was no way to get a big rig around a median to get to the entrance we had to put a few extra miles on to get us to the appropriate driveway pointing in the right direction. We found our way to the back of the property where we found sixty or so semis with their heads down and eyes closed. They were all sleeping. The noise of their diesel engines or APUs represented collective snoring. It was surreal. It kinda reminded me of the scene near the end of I, Robot when Will Smith goes to the deserted side of town where all the abandoned robots live in deserted industrial containers. It was spooky.

An hour later the klaxon roused us and we returned to the warehouse. Dudley proficiently backed up against the designated door and within 15 minutes a lumper came round to break the seals and open the trailer doors. “One pallet?” he asked incredulously? Apparently so. After another 15 minutes we were on our way. We headed a little ways north of Fort Pierce where there was a Flying J truck stop with a Blue Beacon truck wash. The rule is that once a load is dropped, the trailer gets washed out. Sometimes it’s okay to sweep it out but the trailer has to be relatively clean for the next load. This is especially important when the load is 40 pallets of leaking stinky beef or chicken. Dudley got the tractor washed as well. Scarlet, the name I gave his Freightliner Cascadia, was a red beauty again.

Before we hit the road we stopped in the Denny’s attached to the Flying J for some breakfast. (Dudley bought. Cool.) Then I got behind the wheel and took us to our pickup in Lake Wales. The trip went okay until we got to Lake Wales where I had to navigate through town and deal with navigating into the orange juice staging yard. Finally got there and I dealt with the security guard at the gate. He told us where to park and the trailer we were to pick up. I made my first back up into a nice two trailer opening. I only took up one space, of course, but it was nice to have the opening on one side. Dudley guided me every step of the way and made sure I got out of the truck before every back up. Then he talked me through every step of moving the tandems to the back of the trailer and uncoupling. And it was HOT!

From there I drove the tractor up to the offices. Inside and upstairs I introduced myself as a first timer and a kindly, skinny, older lady helped me with the paperwork. Upon seeing that the load was going to Portland, Oregon, she reminisced about how she had been there many years ago. I’m guessing it was at least 40 years ago. She made it sound like right after WW II ended but it couldn’t have been that long. Could it? After using the men’s room, I drove the tractor to the already loaded trailer and set up for the coupling. Went pretty good. As we were heading towards the security gate another driver was having trouble backing into a space. It was a woman, and the guard said that although she said that although she’d been driving for several years and was a good driver in other ways, she just couldn’t get a handle on backing. He chuckled. I did too, outwardly, but on the inside I was already worried about my next backing exercise.

Heading out the gate with another heavy load Dudley wanted to get weighed sooner rather than later. One of our maps showed a scale back at the main intersection in town. We were in the turn lane at a stoplight when we both decided there was no scale at the station so I had to squirm my way back into the through lane and we drove south out of town to find a place to turn around. In this company there are NO (ABSOLUTELY NO!) U-turns allowed.

We found a little office park where Dudley fretted us around a building and we got back onto the highway headed north. There was a scale perhaps 20 miles ahead. Getting there, and the next 30 miles up Highway 25 would be the longest two hours of my life – so far. There were dozens of stop lights and turn lanes and shopping malls that belched out impatient drivers by the hundreds. The weighing went okay, except that I parked too far away from the speaker. It was a tight turn getting back out of the truck stop but we made it back to the highway and after a couple of rain showers we arrived at the Florida Turnpike heading north. By mid-afternoon we reached Wildwood, Fl, where we packed it in for the night. And not a minute too soon. I was whipped.

One last back in, again into a double parking space at the truck stop, and I got ready for bed. I slept like the dead. While I had driven less than 150 miles, it seemed like fifteen hundred. I would drive a lot farther tomorrow.

FLASHBACK: 8/20/12 – Fort Pierce, FL

Got to sleep in this morning until about 5 a.m. local time! Wow! I was already becoming a layabout. After our normal morning ritual we did the Pre-Trip Inspection and started towards our destination in Miami. We allowed a bit more than two hours and encountered a couple of traffic slowdowns. Dudley would be making this delivery at a grocery chain warehouse and we would be arriving a full hour early which was Dudley’s practice. (I named him Dudley just because I liked the sound of the name but damned if he isn’t the original Dudley Doright.)

You gotta talk with the gate people who check the paperwork and the trailer. Then you  gotta talk to the warehouse receiver personnel who check your paperwork and then you gotta talk to the people who do the unloading. These people are called Lumpers.

Since we were carrying a frozen load of meat it would be going into a very cold warehouse, and sure enough it was COLD in there. If I had to go back in I would have to  wear my cap. Turns out I would have to go back in. The unloading ended up taking more than three hours. Most of the time nothing was going on, but when they started hauling the pallets out, the lumpers riding their forklifts would make our tractor buck and kick. Along about two hours into the experience, nature called … in a big way. The men’s room was back in the warehouse. Surely it would be heated. It was not. If it ever was heated, the fact that they left the door wide open neutralized any benefit. My cap may have helped on the way in and the way out, but the seat was coooold.

The unloading complete, we set off north again. While this was to be a two drop load, and we had just made the first drop, a message had come through our QualComm saying we would be swapping loads with another driver who would make the last drop in Orlando and we would be taking his load to a McDonalds distributor back down near Miami. We made the swap back at the Love’s where we had stayed the previous night. We were to make the delivery at 3:30 the next morning.

We made the swap as planned (the other driver was a lousy backer upper), settled in for another night at Love’s complete with shower and drink refill, and had a nice supper at a nearby KFC / Long John Silvers. Hadn’t had fish and chips in quite a while. Still haven’t had the chips. Had vegetables instead. The dietary life in the world of truck stop fast foot was destroying my gluten free eating regimen. I had to eat the right stuff when it was available.

All in all it was a pretty boring day for me, although it was interesting to see how the paperwork and security guard interaction at a delivery works. The next day should be more interesting.

FLASHBACK: 8/19/12 – The Gulf Coast

At maybe 3:30 a.m. Dudley drove us back onto I-12 and we tooled by a couple other places I had stayed during my BP gig. In Slidell we reconnected with I-10 and followed it all the way to I-75 south. The storm clouds building in the east made the sunrise all the more beautiful. The terrain was rolling except where we rode a causeway across Escambia Bay just north of Pensacola. Somewhere along the way I got the treat of pulling into my first weigh station as a rider. Woo hoo. Uneventful.

As we headed toward Tallahassee building storm clouds made for beautiful sunrise scenes.

Of course, this photograph doesn’t do the view justice. Use your imagination.

The trek south on I-75 was very familiar because of several trips south to visit my daughter when she lived in Orlando. I took over the driving duties at Wildwood, just north of the Florida Turnpike. We actually got on the turnpike and I got us down to Highway 60 without taking out any toll booths. Yea!

We exited the turnpike south of Orlando and headed east to I-95 where we would head south to Fort Pierce where there was – you guessed it – a Love’s. It was still light out although the skies were threatening and it was getting darker just because of the heavy cloud cover to the west. I was going to hike down to a Wal-Mart with Dudley who needed to buy some shirts and socks. A block into the walk, he pointed waaay down to I-95 and said it was again that far up the feeder road. I decided I wanted to eat sooner than that, plus it was hot and muggy and we had just taken a shower, so I ducked into a pollo (Spanish for chicken) place that happened to be located right there, and let Dudley make the trek on his own. He said he did this all the time and would be fine.

The pollo place was not Mexican food, like I thought, but Central American, and the only thing I will say about it (in addition to the fact that they did a nice job with the chicken, nicely spiced and moist) was they had the most unique condiment bar I had ever seen. It had chopped onions prepared four ways. The mixture I selected was a creamed onion with a little chopped tomato that I spooned onto my fried plantains. Not sure if that was the proper combination, but it tasted good to me.

While I was eating the skies opened up. Hope Dudley was doing okay. During a lull in the storm I hustled home to the truck and then wandered up into the Arby’s connected to the Love’s and sat watching the storm out the front window. Very electrical and the rain came down in sheets.

Dudley did make it back with his new, slightly moist clothing and we settled in for the night.

FLASHBACK: My First Day Actually Driving Over a Real Live Road

8/18/2012 – Segovia, TX 

We were up and at ‘em early. I put my contacts in, brushed my teeth (both in that disgusting men’s room)and we motored from Segovia to the Love’s Truck stop in Katy where I was able to shower before my wife arrived. A quick word about Dudley and Love’s. Truck stops have frequent flyer-like loyalty programs with cards and websites and everything. If a trucker buys a thousand gallons of fuel over the course of a month, he gets showers and drink refills free for the following month. This benefit extended to the driving team – meaning me. This would largely take the worry out of having to buy my own showers, and the drink refills in my insulated cup kept me in coffee or Coke Zeros on maybe half the days we were out.

I met my wife, all clean and smelling like truck stop liquid soap (me, that is, she smelled okay too), and all was right with the world. She had brought some snacks, TAB, and a couple of other things I would be needing on my travels. The most important delivery was my plastic, official Class A Commercial Drivers License. She got to meet Dudley and see the inside of a real, live OTR truck. It was a worthwhile visit from many different perspectives.

So we bid each other farewell with a squeeze and a kiss and Dudley and I headed east, Dudley at the wheel. I would begin my time behind the wheel in Louisiana. It all started pretty good. Dudley’s truck shifted and steered a lot better than the POSs I had been driving during training.

I kinda floated gears sometimes, probably by accident. I was double clutching on the upshifting with few problems. Downshifting was a bit more challenging. Dudley keeping a stern eye on me complicated things too, I’ll admit. Since these were roads I was very familiar with, I felt comfortable with where we were and where we were going.

It was mostly just “cruising down the highway” time with a little congestion in Lake Charles where we had to cross a high bridge, a little construction activity in Lafayette, and another bigger bridge across the Mississippi in Baton Rouge. In Baton Rouge, by the way, we passed the Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse where Pammie and I celebrated our 42^nd wedding anniversary. That was a hundred and twenty dollar tab. I won’t be seeing a dinner like that again any time soon.

Navigating my way onto I-12 we made it as far as Hammond where I had worked the BP oil spill claims project for 12 months from mid-2010 to mid-2011. We cruised the big truck stops at U.S. Highway 51 and finding no openings we went to a micro truck stop at the next exit east. I was able to pull forward into an open slot at this Chevron that was less than two and a half miles where I had spent 12 hours a day for the better part of a year. I would have liked to done a quick tour of the city, but in an 18-wheeler carrying 22 tons of meat, that would have not been advisable. So we just battened down for the night. It was barely dark and we would be getting up very early. Again.