How did a 50-something,nicely brought up mother from London, England land up driving an 18 wheeler across America? It became a whole lot more complicated than you would expect. However, adventures are adventures and hiccups are where the stories lay…
Why on earth would a fifty-something, nicely brought-up mother suddenly make a decision to drive a truck?
It was a very good question and, like the majority of good questions it had answers both basic and complex. From ‘it sounds like fun’ through ‘it’s a normal immigrant job’ via ‘well, 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 want to get bigger it’s either a truck or even 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 seeing while driving since emigrating from the UK to Canada. There seemed to be no rationalisation needless to say for the other vague pull, a lifelong obsession with doing things merely because they’re slightly weird.
Adding to my list of excuses that it seemed like a terrific angle for a book on trucking assisted slightly when trying to explain to those with no imagination, however, not much.
In fact, I hadn’t expected terror when I breezed into Tri-County Truck Driver Training one afternoon in 2008. I simply desired to understand what it took to be a trucking lady. I wanted to observe the US, how hard can it be?
Of course there is a minor distinction between learning to handle a 75-foot, slow-moving guided missile and dreaming about getting paid to see the continent; and actually earning a living. Spending 14 hours a day smelling of diesel. My first job was taking trailers full of mail from East to West. Team driving across Canada’s endless prairies and across The Rockies, and sometimes getting lucky enough to return 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 of the snow twice in a night in Alberta. I’ve made friends in Virginia and enemies here at home. And, given half a chance, I would probably forget all about how impossibly strenious it is and go out again to drive 18 wheels over the horizon.