How did a 50-something,well brought up mother from London, England find herself driving an 18 wheeler across The United States? It ended up being a great deal more complicated than you would think. However, adventures are adventures and hiccups are where the stories lay…
Why on earth would a fifty-something, well brought-up mother suddenly decide to drive a truck?
It’s an excellent question and, like most good questions it had answers both basic and complex. From ‘it sounds like fun’ through ‘it’s an authentic immigrant job’ via ‘well, I’m able to earn more cash in a truck than I’m able to by using a Master’s degree’ with a detour along ‘I’ve driven ambulances and stretch limos, if I want to get bigger it’s either a truck or possibly a plane and this course is cheaper’…none of these reasons quite encapsulated all of it.
And these were merely the rationalisations for a much vaguer pull towards the massive beasties that I’d been enjoying watching on the highway ever since emigrating from the UK to Canada. There was no rationalisation of course for the other vague pull, a lifelong dependence on doing things merely because they’re slightly unusual.
Adding to my list of reasons that it appeared to be a terrific angle for a book on trucking assisted just a little when trying to explain to people with no imagination, although not much.
To tell the truth, I hadn’t predicted fear when I breezed into Tri-County Truck Driver Training one afternoon in 2008. I simply needed to understand what it took to become a trucking lady. I wanted to see the USA, how hard might it be?
As expected there is a slight difference between studying to handle a 75-foot, slow-moving guided missile and dreaming of receiving payment to see the continent; and actually earning a living. Spending 14 hours every day smelling of diesel. My first job was taking trailers full of mail from East to West. Team driving across Canada’s vast prairies and across The Rockies, and sometimes getting lucky enough to return via Texas. That Lake Effect Winter Storm was just one 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 of the snow twice in a night in Alberta. I’ve made buddies in Virginia and foes here at home. And, given half a chance, I’d probably forget about how impossibly tiring it is and head out again to drive 18 wheels over the horizon.
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