How did a 50-something,nicely brought up mother from London, England finish up driving an 18 wheeler across the US? It became a lot more complicated than you’d imagine. However, adventures are adventures and hiccups are where the stories lay…
Why would a fifty-something, well brought-up mother suddenly opt to go trucking?
It’s a really good question and, like the majority of good questions it had answers both simple and complex. From ‘it sounds like fun’ through ‘it’s an authentic immigrant job’ via ‘well, I could earn more cash in a truck than I could using a Master’s degree’ with a detour along ‘I’ve driven ambulances and stretch limos, if I need to get bigger it’s either a truck or perhaps a plane and this course is cheaper’…none of these reasons quite encapsulated all of it.
And these were merely the rationalisations for the much vaguer pull towards the massive beasties that I’d been seeing while driving since emigrating from the UK to Canada. There was no rationalisation of course for the other vague pull, a lifelong addiction to doing things merely because they’re just a little weird.
Adding to my list of reasons that it appeared to be an excellent angle for a book on trucking helped a bit when explaining to those with no imagination, although not much.
Actually, I hadn’t expected panic when I breezed into Tri-County Truck Driver Training one afternoon in 2008. I just needed to understand what it took to be a trucking lady. I wanted to observe the United States, how hard could it be?
Of course there is a small distinction between finding out how to handle a 75-foot, slow-moving guided missile and dreaming about getting money to see the continent; and actually earning a living. Spending 14 hours every day smelling of diesel. My first job was taking trailers packed with mail from East to West. Team driving across Canada’s vast prairies and across The Rockies, and sometimes getting lucky enough to get home via Texas. That Lake Effect Winter Storm was just an example of our countless weather-related narrow squeaks. North American trucking can be quite the escapade.
I’ve been almost arrested in Baltimore, sick as a dog in Tennessee, terrified in Chicago, Dallas and Detroit and dug out from the snow twice in one night in Alberta. I’ve made pals in Virginia and foes at home. And, given half a chance, I might probably forget about how impossibly tiring it is and go out again to steer 18 wheels over the horizon.
This entry was posted on Sunday, January 29th, 2012 at 5:58 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.